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Posts Tagged ‘Trust’
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Both Likeability and Credibility begin with the other person’s first impression of you. The first impression is a mental activity that goes on behind the scenes in your old brain. This mental activity takes place in a split second and because the old brain doesn’t have a lot to go on, it uses your face, your demeanor, your clothes and other immediate impressions to decide whether or not you can be trusted.
We know from the research that trustworthiness is the first decision the old brain seeks out and that makes sense because remember the old brain is, well…. old. It’s still operating in a world where giant predators with enormous appetites were looking to snack on your body parts. Survival meant quickly being able to size up a situation and choose the appropriate response. Even though you’re not really operating in that world anymore, your old brain still thinks it is.
So in order to increase your credibility and likeability, you have to pay attention to the old brain and get through the trust gate. It’s a process – First I decide if I trust you, then I decide if I like you. If I like you, I’ll pay attention long enough to see if I find you credible. The more you can do in those first few seconds to enable the other person to trust you, the better the odds you’ll make it through the likeability and credibility gates.
Tags: Credibility, first impression, Trust, trustworthiness
Posted in Credibility, First Impressions, Likeability, Trust | No Comments »
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
We know from the research that the way we talk (speed, pauses, pronunciation, volume, etc.) triggers certain judgements about our Credibility. It seems that we humans have an innate competence detector. Research by Brandeis University Professor Leslie Zebrowitz suggests that “strangers can judge intelligence at levels significantly better than chance from bried exposures to a target’s face, voice and other non-verbal cues.”
Work by University of Victoria researchers Reynolds and Gifford suggests that auditory cues are more strongly related to intelligence than visual ones. Reynolds and Gifford found that the following speaking styles are interpreted as higher intelligence:
- Less halting speech
- More standard use of language
- Speaking more words
- Speaking each word clearly
- Speaking faster
What does this mean? If you are excellent at thinking on your feet, then you are likely not much affected by it. However, if you’re like most of us, when you have to think on your feet your mouth has to wait for your brain to catch up and give direction. Thus, your delivery is peppered with halting stutters and stammers. Listeners perceive such a delivery as evidence that you lack a certain amount of mental snap.
How can you use it? Prepare. When you are prepared you can improvise more easily and deliver powerful answers in a convincing style. Practice. The more you practice delivering, the more natural and fluid your delivery will become.
Tags: Credibility, Likeability, Trust
Posted in Credibility, Credibility Marketing, Likeability, Psychology, Trust | No Comments »
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
Credibility is elusive. Few people understand it. Very few people can even describe it.
We’ve been working with Credibility since 1991. Actually, I started to think about it as early as 1986. Point is, we know it inside and out. We know what it is, what causes it and what the results are. Here is our working definition:
Credibility is a combination of concepts:
Competence + Character + Consistency+Relevance.
Together, they enable a belief in the minds of your target market that you understand their situation, have their best interest at heart, are an expert at solving their specific problems, and will do so without robbing them.
That definition is nteresting and important, but not implementable. See how that definition contains nothing you can implement today? In practical terms, the first step to improve your Credibility is to improve your Likeability, and the first step in that is to learn how to read people.
Where can you go to learn that? Easy, look at our book Face Values. It is the most effective resource for business professionals wanting to improve likeability.
If you find this tid bit of wisdom interesting, you’ll find our books astounding! You can find them on the Shop page at: http://www.aboutpeople.com/
– Michael Lovas
Tags: Behavior, Business Communication, Credibility, Likeability, Psychology, Reading People, Trust
Posted in Attractiveness, Credibility, Likeability, Psychology, Reading People | No Comments »
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
One of the things we learned when researching Likeability is that there are five basic truths. We refer to these as the Likeability Principles. They are:
- We like people who are similar to us in some way (Similarity)
- We like people who are familiar to us (Familiarity)
- We like people who like us (Reciprocity).
- We like people who are genuinely interested in us (Interest)
- We like people who are easy to like (i.e. demonstrate the qualities of likeability: empathetic, trustworthy, positive, non-judgemental, real).
Tags: Credibility, Likeability, Trust
Posted in Likeability | No Comments »
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