Are some first dates easier to read than others? The role of target well-being in distinctively accurate first impressions

Who knows what we are good at? Unique insights of the self, knowledgeable informants, and strangers into a person’s abilities

“…Notably, strangerestimates of abilities after short real-life interactions seem to be less accurate (e.g., r ≈ .1 for intelligence and r ≈ .0 for creativity in Vazire, 2010). What is more, first impressions on speed dates tend to be less accurate than in more platonic contexts (Kerr et al, 2020). In line with this, a speeddating study reported an accuracy of intelligence estimates of only around .1 (Driebe et al, 2021).…”

“…As stranger-estimates, we collected ratings by people who had just met the targets in speed dates. The speed-dating design enables naturalistic interactions between perceivers and targets (Finkel et al, 2007) and has been used mostly to study interpersonal attraction (e.g., Asendorpf et al, 2011;Jauk et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2019) but also to investigate the accuracy of first impressions (e.g., Kerr et al, 2020). Intelligence, creativity, and social-emotional competence are among the highest ranked attributes in prospective mates (Buss et al, 1990;Gignac et al, 2018).…”

“…As the majority of informants were friends of the targets, it is open whether family members or romantic partners would show similar other-knowledge (for potential differences between the knowledge of friends and partners see Vazire, 2010). Second, the perception of new acquaintances within the dating context might be characterized by specific motivations and biases, which are not necessarily generalizable to other judgments at first encounters (Kerr et al, 2020). It would be interesting to see how good strangers are at judging a person's abilities in other settings with practical relevance (e.g., job interviews).…”

What you see is what you want to get: Perceived abilities outperform objective test performance in predicting mate appeal in speed dating

“…Moreover, we aimed to examine mate appeal in a naturalistic setting and, therefore, used the speed-dating paradigm, which allows for genuine interactions between individuals with the prospect to see each other again (Finkel et al, 2007). This paradigm has been successfully applied for many research questions on interpersonal perception (e.g., Hopwood et al, 2021;Kerr et al, 2020) and attraction (e.g., Asendorpf et al, 2011;Berrios et al, 2015;Jauk et al, 2016). Yet, speed-dating studies on the appeal of actual abilities are still rare (but see Driebe et al, 2020).…”

Does mental well-being predict being perceived as a happy peer? A longitudinal social network study

“…The experience of positive affect might stimulate people not only to be more open to cooperative behavior and to interact with others (Carnevale, 2007), but also to be perceived as happy during the early stages of relationship formation, which might contribute to setting the initial social bonding between zero acquaintances. Supporting this, individuals with higher levels of emotional well-being were perceived as favorable targets on first dates (Kerr et al, 2020). In brief, an individuals' mental well-being influences others to perceive them as a happy individual, at least in the short term, which is considered a useful feature in the development of durable social relationships.…”