Over many thousands of years, our ancestors have relied on nonverbal communication cues like body language, expression and tone of voice as a survival mechanism, to gauge whether an outsider was friend or foe. It was a matter of life or death. What is their intention towards me? Are they carrying a weapon? Are they capable of harming me? Today, we face less risk, yet we still make snap judgements, assessing everyone we meet. How are you perceived by others and what can you do to create feelings of trust?

In this post, we focus on first impressions–how important are they and why? And how this relates to you and your personal presentation. We touch on two related concepts, confirmation bias and impression updating.