I'm very interested in how people size one another up in social situations and in particular what we key in on when we are making these judgements.
Let's make an imaginary experiment.
I make several video tapes of actual business meetings just prior to when they begin. I edit the videos so that all explicit characterizations of the people are cut out (e.g. you wouldn't here one person address another person as "sir" or "ma'am"). I also get several simultaneous camera angles on each meeting. So basically you're seeing the people freely interact.
Now, I want you as the subject to watch the videos and tell me what you think the people are like. Who's the leader? Who is smart? Who is ineffective? Who is conniving? Etc.
Next, I ask you why you made each of these judgements, and I attempt to elicit very explicit rationale - such as "people who slump in their seats seem ineffective to me" or "people who hold their chins higher seem like leaders to me".
Can anyone point me to discussions of real experiments similar to this?
In particular I'm interested in
- How accurate humans tend to be in quickly "sizing up" people.
- How aware people are of why they are making these judgements and aware of what they are cueing in on.
- What is it that they are actually cueing in on?
I'm more interested in all types of social appraisals, (intelligence, wealth, honesty, etc.), but I'm most interested in appraisals of leadership qualities.