--- title: People Like You More Than You Think, a New Study Suggests description: A new study suggests that you're making better first impressions than you think, and that you underestimate how much people like you. canonical: https://time.com/5396598/good-first-impression/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-17T15:34:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:11.292Z article:section: Health og:title: People Like You More Than You Think, a New Study Suggests og:description: You're probably already making a good first impression og:url: https://time.com/5396598/good-first-impression/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc59ae14af73130ae/69887b4d196cf40f0003a198/work-relationships-coffee-communication-betterment-success.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2500 og:image:height: 1406 og:image:alt: work-relationships-coffee-communication-betterment-success-motto-stock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: People Like You More Than You Think, a New Study Suggests twitter:description: You're probably already making a good first impression twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc59ae14af73130ae/69887b4d196cf40f0003a198/work-relationships-coffee-communication-betterment-success.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # People Like You More Than You Think, a New Study Suggests > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=736ac004-7671-4fae-a87e-18ed7b9b6c76&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The ABCDs of Making a First Impression [Watch (HLS stream): The ABCDs of Making a First Impression](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/g0b3ff95.m3u8) (1:48)  _Published 2016-05-18. The four things you need to keep in mind when you go for a job interview._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Sep 17, 2018 3:34 PM UTC  Peechaya Burroughs for TIME  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Sep 17, 2018 3:34 PM UTC You may not get a second chance at making a [first impression](http://time.com/5374799/best-first-impression-experts/) — but [a recent study](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797618783714) suggests that you probably don’t need one anyway. The research, published in the journal _Psychological Science_, finds that people often underestimate how much another person likes them after they meet for the first time. “I always have this sneaking suspicion that maybe my conversation partner didn’t like me or enjoy my company as much as I liked them or enjoyed their company,” says Gus Cooney, a social psychologist at Harvard University who co-authored the paper with Erica Boothby, a postdoctoral psychology researcher at Cornell University. “Is it just me?” he wondered. “Or is it everybody?” Cooney’s research suggests it’s the latter. The researchers ran a series of experiments in which two people met and talked for the first time, then rated their own conversational performance and the other person’s. Across conversations of varying lengths, some with topics provided and others without, the researchers found that people consistently rated their conversation partner as more likable and enjoyable to talk to than they rated themselves. Shy people were especially prone to the “liking gap,” Cooney says, but it happened across personality types. There was even evidence, gathered through a study that surveyed college suitemates over an academic year, that the misperception persists beyond first interactions, potentially lasting months or more. Since it’s impossible for both people in a conversation to be the more likable one, Cooney says this finding suggests that we treat new acquaintances more kindly than we do ourselves — and that people like us more than we think they do. Several factors are likely driving the liking gap, Cooney says. For one thing, people may be so hyper-focused on their side of the conversation that they can’t accurately gauge how the other person is feeling. “We don’t know what other people are thinking, and so we substitute our own thoughts about ourselves for what other people think,” Cooney explains. “We’re basically projecting what we think of our own performance, and assume that’s what other people think of us.” People tend to be harder on themselves than they are on new acquaintances. After a conversation, you can look back on everything you said wrong and mentally correct it, or remember instances when you were funnier, kinder or more eloquent. You don’t have the same mental catalogue for someone you’ve just met, so you may “take them more at face value and be much more charitable,” Cooney says. That’s a potential problem, since underselling yourself socially may promote sadness and [anxiety](http://time.com/5269371/americans-anxiety-poll/), or cause you to miss out on [valuable personal interactions](http://time.com/5212558/loneliness-social-isolation-heart-health/), Cooney says. While the study didn’t look into strategies for overcoming the liking gap, Cooney says simply knowing it exists is a good place to start. “We always have this post-mortem with ourselves. That little voice in your head turns on, and you start thinking about your conversation,” Cooney says. “Be suspicious of this voice and its accuracy.” Another new study, [published in ](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0425-1)[_Nature Human_](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0425-1)[ Behavior](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0425-1), supports this type of social pep talk. It found that when a person makes a positive first impression, the other person remembers it — but when an initial meeting goes poorly, the other person is ready and willing to change his mind and give him another chance. That research was based on a hypothetical scenario in which a stranger either electrically shocked another person for money — creating a wholly negative first impression — or turned down the cash out of concern for the other person. Study participants were willing to give even the electrical shockers a second chance at making a good impression, the researchers found — so after a normal conversation, devoid of electrical shocks, you’ll probably do just fine. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] As image consultants, we very much work with clients on their appearance. And it's very important because when they meet each other, they make a lot decisions about each other. We immediately decided somebody, Successful, is somebody knowledgeable, is somebody trustworthy or not. Because we only see a person in those first seven seconds, your appearance is very important. It's like a filter you put in front of you but there are other elements Instead are very important for your image. And I call them the big c to d. So after you're a for appearance comes b for behavior. And your behavior includes your body language. The way you walk, the way you sit, the way you carry your body through for example a job interview. And it's your business etiquette skills. Do you shake hands? Do you keep eye contact or are you on your phone all the time while you speak to people? And then it's the C for your communication. We know that the eleven first words in every single conversation are the most important ones. So how do you start that conversation? It's about how you start it and what you see. How do you fill up those 11 words that somebody remembers you in a very positive way? And then I had the D for digital footprint because I find that nowadays Most first impressions we do not make in person any more. We make it in a digital way. We sent out an email, for example. And if you go into a job interview, for sure your future employer will go to your name and look what they find out about you on the internet. Before you even ever have the chance to enter the room and show them how excellent you are. 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