People decide whether someone is trustworthy or not when they first look at the other person’s face. Unfortunately, researchers have found that they are quite often wrong.
Of
Sebastian Herrmann
In the end, variations of a sentence could be heard, performed in different degrees of contrition. Representatives of Germany’s top political personnel conceded that they were wrong about him, and that was accompanied by the fact that it was quite a surprise. As if nobody could have guessed that the ruler in the Kremlin, who is of course at stake here, should be assessed with the greatest caution. In retrospect, the way the man was treated in Moscow seems outrageously naïve, as if his trustworthiness had been judged less on the basis of his actions and more on the basis of an impression. It was devastating, but it’s human. This is how it works in everyday life, at least when there is hardly any information available: Whoever meets a stranger for the first time automatically makes a judgment. Within fractions of a second it is clear whether this person appears nice, attractive, dominant or trustworthy. Unfortunately, even in these cases, the verdict is at best coincidental.