Are you a good judge of character? Can you make an accurate judgment of people’s personalities based only on your first impression of them? Ironically, the answer lies as much in them as it does in you.
US psychologist Henry Adams tried to identify good judges of character in 1927.His research led him to conclude that people fell into two groups—good judges of themselves and good judges of others. Adams’s research has been widely criticized since then, but he wasn’t entirely wrong about there being two clearly different types.
We need to define what a good judge of character is. Is it someone who can read personality or someone who can read emotion? Those are two different skills. Emotions such as anger or joy or sadness can generate easily identifiable physical signs. Most of us would probably be able to accurately identify these signs, even in a stranger. As such, most of us are probably good judges of emotion.
In order to be a good judge of personality, however, there needs to be an interaction with the other person, and that person needs to be a “good target”. “Good targets” are people who show related and useful clues to their personality. So this means “the good judge” will only appear when reading “good targets”. This is according to Rogers and Biesanz in their 2019 journal entitled “Reassessing the Good Judge of Personality”. “We found clear and strong evidence that the good judge does exist”, Rogers and Biesanz concluded. But their key finding is that the good judge does not have magical gifts of observation — they are simply able to “detect and use information provided by the good target”.
So, are first impressions really accurate? Well, if you’re a good judge talking to a “good target”, then it seems the answer is “yes”. And now we know that good judges probably do exist, more researches can be done into how they read personality, what kind of people they are — and whether their skills can be taught.
【小题1】What is the conclusion of Adams’s research?| A．Fewer people can read physical signs. |
| B．Most people are good judges of themselves. |
| C．First impressions have a huge effect on people. |
| D．There are two obviously different types of people. |
| A．There is no need to interact with the other person. |
| B．Good judges are related to good targets. |
| C．Good judges have magical talents for emotion. |
| D．Good targets are persons who hide important information. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Indifferent. | C．Objective. | D．Pessimistic. |
| A．To inform readers of a good judge of character. |
| B．To highlight the importance of good character. |
| C．To introduce some ways of define good characters. |
| D．To explain what first impressions are. |
