First impression hack - Scientific HUMINT cheats!

This course presents 12 scientifically proven strategies to leave a positive lasting first impression. If you need proven strategies to leave a lasting first impression, presented in short videos, this course is ideal for you! In just one hour I'll present my model for hacking the first impression.

Why is this course important?
You never get a second chance, the saying goes, to make a first impression. Within 50 milliseconds of seeing someone’s face, you unconsciously make decisions that will influence your interactions.
Source: https://www.readersdigest.ca/health/relationships/13-things-you-should-know-about-first-impressions/

This course is created for people that meet lot's of people in a short amount of time and need to make a favourable first impression with that person. These 12 tips can be used to hack the first impression! You will learn these hacks in less than 60 minutes! If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me.

This section describes the relation between verbal and non-verbal communication. In the resource you may find a paper that is completely focussed on non-verbal communication. It is a great resource!

Choose the best answer

Establishing report is the single most effective technique to make a lasting first impression. In the resources you will find additional scientific reading. A summary is presented below.

1. Common ground. In addition to personalizing the interaction, self-disclosures can establish common ground – highlighting overlapping interests or identities between interviewer and source.

2. Immediacy behaviors. These immediacy behaviors generally include leaning forward, orienting one’s body toward the source, reducing the physical distance between oneself and the source, and making eye contact.

3. Mimicry. Mirroring nonverbal behavior, speech rate, or linguistic patterns helps to establish both coordination and positivity in the interaction.

4. Active listening. A variety of responses can demonstrate the interviewer’s interest and engagement, including backchannel responding (brief affirmative responses, such as ok, yes, uh-huh) and occasionally paraphrasing back what the source has said. Other active listening responses found to be useful in crisis negotiations include repeating back, summarizing, or labeling what is said by the other person

5. Self-disclosure. Research indicates that disclosing personal information, such as biographical details and preferences, can increase positivity in an interaction

6. Contact/persistence. The more exposure someone has to a person or object, the more positive their evaluation becomes over time, assuming that their initial reaction was either neutral or positive

7. Contrast. In some situations, exhibiting complementary behavior rather than mimicking a source’s behavior may be more effective in building rapport. Specifically, behavior related to status and control tends to invite complementary responses (Markey, Funder, & Ozer, 2003). In contrast, behavior related to liking and affiliation tends to be reciprocated with similar behavior.

The impact of establishing rapport has also been found empirically. See study attached: The Effect of Rapport in Forensic Interviewing.

Choose the best answer.

Previous research demonstrated social influence resulting from mimicry (also known as the chameleon effect - see resource attached); a confederate who mimicked participants was more highly regarded than a confederate who did not, despite the fact that participants did not explicitly notice the mimicry.

Choose the best answer.

Interviewers should be aware that conversations via phone carries some additional challenges in regard to establishing rapport. This is due to the loss of nonverbal cues during the interaction, the lack of physical closeness, and, in cases where it is conducted via video conferencing, the artificiality of eye contact through a screen.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7538900/

Choose the best answer

It is said that most people listen to formulate their next sentence, experts listen to understand. Listening closely is very very difficult.

Several resources added:

1) Listening Skills Development Through Multimedia. As we now communicate via multiple channels developing listening skills across these channel will help you succeed.
2) Developing Listening Skills (in CLIL). This paper presents a table with Listening comprehension strategies and practice activities (see table 1).
3) Strategies for Developing Listening Skills. This paper focuses on the strategies for developing listening skills (see from page 15).

Enjoy!

Choose the best answer.

In a recent article for Harvard Business Review, Daniel Kahneman (and others) describe a simple way to detect bias and minimize its effects in the most common type of decision people make: determining whether to accept, reject, or pass on a recommendation. Daniel Kahneman wrote a book around these concepts called 'Thinking fast and slow' (https://amzn.to/2UToiSK)

Preliminary Questions: Ask yourself Before you make the Big Decision.

1. Check for Self-interested Biases

• Is there any reason to suspect the team making the recommendation of errors motivated by self-interest?

• Review the proposal with extra care, especially for overoptimism.

2. Check for the Affect Heuristic

• Has the team fallen in love with its proposal?

• Rigorously apply all the quality controls on the checklist.

3. Check for Groupthink

• Were there dissenting opinions within the team?

• Were they explored adequately?

• Solicit dissenting views, discreetly if necessary.

• Challenge Questions: Ask the recommenders

4. Check for Saliency Bias

• Could the diagnosis be overly influenced by an analogy to a memorable success?

• Ask for more analogies, and rigorously analyze their similarity to the current situation.

5. Check for Confirmation Bias

• Are credible alternatives included along with the recommendation?

• Request additional options.

6. Check for Availability Bias

• If you had to make this decision again in a year’s time, what information would you want, and can you get more of it now?

• Use checklists of the data needed for each kind of decision.

7. Check for Anchoring Bias

• Do you know where the numbers came from? Can there be

• ...unsubstantiated numbers?

• ...extrapolation from history?

• ...a motivation to use a certain anchor?

• Reanchor with figures generated by other models or benchmarks, and request new analysis.

8. Check for Halo Effect

• Is the team assuming that a person, organization, or approach that is successful in one area will be just as successful in another?

• Eliminate false inferences, and ask the team to seek additional comparable examples.

9. Check for Sunk-Cost Fallacy, Endowment Effect

• Are the recommenders overly attached to a history of past decisions?

• Consider the issue as if you were a new CEO.

• Evaluation Questions: Ask about the proposal

10. Check for Overconfidence, Planning Fallacy, Optimistic Biases, Competitor Neglect

• Is the base case overly optimistic?

• Have the team build a case taking an outside view; use war games.

11. Check for Disaster Neglect

• Is the worst case bad enough?

• Have the team conduct a premortem: Imagine that the worst has happened, and develop a story about the causes.

12. Check for Loss Aversion

• Is the recommending team overly cautious?

• Realign incentives to share responsibility for the risk or to remove risk.

Choose the best answer. This question is partially based on the resource attached to this video. This is done intentionally to make you learn even more.

Dress to kill everywhere because you never know where or when you might encounter the one. Obviously this advice makes little sense when you are in a happy relationship. However, then you could use this advice from another perspective, because you never know when or where you encounter that big client that you need to secure your bonus. You are selling yourself (nor verbally) even though you might not be aware of it.     

Choose the best answer.

This 'trick' is derived from pick up artists such as Eric von Markovik and Neil Strauss. Yes, these are cheap and down right sleazy tricks, but in some occasions they might be effective. See how they will help you in achieving your goal. Please these method at your own peril, don't use this methods to hurt the feelings of others.   

More information about cheap an sleazy tricks can be found here:
The Game - Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists: https://amzn.to/3ylkcjX
The Mystery Method: https://amzn.to/2WvwSI3

Choose the best answer.

In short introduction can be a power kick starter for a conversation. Use that information to start the conversation with small talk. This tip is also (very) relevant in office spaces. For instance, when you have to present an presentation for an audience that you are not fully acquainted with.

Attached you may find a paper that has identified five different types of strategies that could be used as a good attention grabber as alternative of a 'who is this'. These are:

1. “The quote” which consists of some sort of quotation that speaks to the audience (the quotation could be empirically based if the basis for the paper is a case study, or based on a previously well-known quotation if the paper is not a case study).

2. “The anecdote” which is based on a selected narrative (which preferably, but not necessarily, is empirically based).

3. “The provocative question” which should be intriguing and preferably contradict “taken-for-granted” assumptions of the audience (the question could/should be closely connected to the research question, or the title, of the paper).

4. “The surprise” which is a claim that comes across as interesting, surprising, or unknown to the audience (this is an especially useful strategy if the author has a paper that is based on a “new phenomenon”).

5. “The metaphor” which represents a stylistic element that captures central points of the paper (the metaphor is somewhat similar to “the quotation,” as it should speak to the audience but should solely be based on the author’s ability to use various stylistic elements).

Choose the best answer

The horse 'clever Hans' used body movements of his boss to guess the answer on each question. We humans can also use context available to our advantage. Consider Open Source Intelligence or OSINT. With OSINT we gather intelligence by scraping information from public sources. There is such a wealth of legally collectible OSINT available thanks to social media and other online activities. You can use this to successfully 'profile' your person of interest.

Herewith a great and detailed example of how this could be done (if you are short in time read the second one):
1. https://cyberprotection-magazine.com/introduction-to-digital-forensics/
2. https://cyberprotection-magazine.com/open-source-intelligence-osint-a-practical-example/
3. https://cyberprotection-magazine.com/osint-online-tracking-and-behavioral-profiling/

Choose the best answer

Greet people with an big grin and open arms and you will stand out. People will remember you (not only because of COVID-19) but also because they are not used to being greeting so warmly. Especially, when you are consistent in your greeting behaviour, you'll stand out. However, keep the smile for the introduction. Since, a broad smile increases warmth perceptions but may decrease competence perceptions (see paper attached for more info).

How Do I Find Ways To Laugh And Smile More?

If all these smile benefits have you asking how you can help yourself laugh and smile more, there are many things you can do. Here are a few things to try to encourage more laughter and smiling in your life:

• Force it if you must: Since even a fake smile can increase your feelings of happiness, the first step to being happier is smiling even when you don’t feel like it.

• Find humor: If you’re feeling down or even just notice that you haven’t laughed in a while, put on a funny movie, read some jokes or seek out a humor boost in any way you enjoy.

• Engage with others: We are socialized to laugh and smile more in a group. Make sure you spend time with friends who make you do both regularly.

• Laugh at yourself: Life is really all about how you approach things. Even if you’re going through hard times, look for the good or the humor. This will positively impact your outlook, your health and your overall quality of life.

Source: https://online.uwa.edu/news/benefits-of-smiling-and-laughter/

Choose the best answer

Spicy up your vocabulary so that you can give interesting/intriguing answers. These answer then prompt the receiver to ask more questions, which will keep the conversation going. 

Choose the best answer

A special way to spice up your vocabulary is to learn jargon. Especially, when you are planing to meet someone and you know his/her interest upfront. Obviously, you can check social media accounts to get an idea of his/her interests. By learning jargon you can actively increase you success rate of a first impression, because you simply talk about the interests you have learned through his/her social media. Word of caution: people do recognise if you are faking it. Be genuine, really dive deep into the topic, study the concepts till you can form your own opinion about them.

Choose the best answer

Be a word detective is all about keeping the conversation alive. Look for words that you can use as a hook to ask additional questions.

However, you can go to far in the sense that you nudge your interviewee to confess something that is not true...I know this sounds horrible but it happens. See resource and judge for yourself. Herewith some quotes from the paper:

"Experienced investigators recognize the strategic importance of using their voices to gather information and elicit confessions."
"Open-ended questions minimize the risk of interviewers imposing their views or opinions of what happened on the subject"

What is a Leading Question? A leading question is a type of question that prompts a respondent towards providing an already-determined answer.
Source: https://www.formpl.us/blog/leading-question

Choose the best answer. Note, we did not explicitly discuss this topic, but I do ask this question to enhance your learning experience.

Changing context may also change perception of the same object. This can be true in various circumstances. Consider a profit and loss statement of a firm that makes no profit. When you look at the numbers you see a company that is losing money. However, when your friend looks, at the same profit and loss statement, (s)he sees a firm that is investing to make future profits. Who is right? Time will tell. But the context (or your frame of reference) is important in interpreting the numbers. 

Choose the best answer

Two examples:
1) More detailed information about equity and equilibrium in first impression is researched by Hambling-Jones & Merrison (2012). Their paper is called: Inequity in the pursuit of intimacy: An analysis of British pick-up artist interactions can be found as downloadable materials.
[Inequity in the pursuit of intimacy- An analysis of British pick-up artist interactions]

2) The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence dating-site users to initiate contact with potential romantic partners. The factor that was found to be most significantly related to initiating contact was the length of time that elapsed from last connection to the site, which implies the perceived accessibility of potential romantic partners. The findings were explained in terms of the Social Exchange Theory: people are attracted to those who grant them rewards.
[Factors Related to Initiating Interpersonal Contacts on Internet Dating Sites]

Choose the best answer

This video explains the secret advertising agencies are using for years. Use adjectives to increase the stickiness of your point. According to Ke and Wang (2013) The most used adjectives are: good, beautiful, real, better, best, great, perfect and pure.

Keep in mind that some adjectives reflect socio-cultural aspects. For instance, as in the case of the products called Organic which appeal to Western and European consumers, while products called Beiti or homemade have a strong appeal to Egyptian consumers (Ebaid, 2018).

The studies can be found here:
1) Ke and Wang (2013) can be found in the resources
2) Ebaid (2018) can be found here: https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=89660&#abstract

Choose the best answer

Except for parroting (which similar to quoting) both paraphrasing and summarizing can have a downside. Suppose you unintentionally make an incomplete summarization by omitting the main idea. Also, you don't bother to validate your summary. Then based on your own assumptions you could make wrong decisions.

Consider the study of Brown (2003) who suggets that "I assert that paraphrasing is not simply a neutral activity that merely functions to clarify a student response, it is a subtle means by which the leader of the session can, often inadvertently or unknowingly, alter the student’s reply with the consequence of favouring particular knowledge(s)."

So use with care and ALWAYS VALIDATE your assumptions.

Choose the best answer.