The use of videoconferencing platforms has globally risen to facilitate face-to-face communication since the onset of COVID-19. But how do our first impressions of people we meet on Zoom compare to in-person interactions? Specifically, do we view others’ personalities as accurately (in line with their unique personality) and normatively (in line with the average, desirable personality) as in-person? Across two Zoom first-impression round-robin studies (exploratory study: N = 567, Dyads = 3,053; preregistered replication: N = 371, Dyads = 1,961), which we compared to an in-person round-robin study (N = 306; Dyads = 1,682), people viewed others’ personalities as accurately and as normatively on Zoom as in-person. Moreover, people better liked interaction partners they viewed more accurately and normatively. However, in interactions of poorer audio-video quality, people viewed others less accurately, less normatively, and liked them less. Overall, through a screen, our impressions of others are as accurate and normative as face-to-face, but it depends on the quality of that screen.
AyalS.CelseJ.HochmanG. (2021). Crafting messages to fight dishonesty: A field investigation of the effects of social norms and watching eye cues on fare evasion. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 166, 9–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.10.003
2.
BailensonJ. N. (2021). Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 2(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000030
3.
BaschJ. M.MelchersK. G.KurzA.KriegerM.MillerL. (2021). It takes more than a good camera: Which factors contribute to differences between face-to-face interviews and videoconference interviews regarding performance ratings and interviewee perceptions?Journal of Business and Psychology, 36(5), 921–940. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-020-09714-3
4.
BatesD.MächlerM.BolkerB.WalkerS. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v067.i01
5.
BeerA.RogersK. H.LetzringT. D. (2019). Effects of escalated exposure to information on accuracy of personality judgment. Journal of Research in Personality, 83, 103864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103864
6.
BiesanzJ. C. (2010). The social accuracy model of interpersonal perception: Assessing individual differences in perceptive and expressive accuracy. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 45(5), 853–885. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2010.519262
7.
BiesanzJ. C. (2021). The social accuracy model. In LetzringT. D.SpainJ. S. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of accurate personality judgment (pp. 61–82). Oxford University Press. https://10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190912529.013.5
8.
BiesanzJ. C.HumanL. J. (2010). The cost of forming more accurate impressions: Accuracy-motivated perceivers see the personality of others more distinctively but less normatively than perceivers without an explicit goal. Psychological Science, 21(4), 589–594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610364121
9.
BiesanzJ. C.SchragerS. M. (2017). Sample size planning with effect size estimates [Unpublished Manuscript]. University of British Columbia.
10.
BucherM. A.SuzukiT.SamuelD. B. (2019). A meta-analytic review of personality traits and their associations with mental health treatment outcomes. Clinical Psychology Review, 70, 51–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.04.002
11.
ConnellyB. S.OnesD. S. (2010). An other perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers’ accuracy and predictive validity. Psychological Bulletin, 136(6), 1092–1122. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021212
12.
CronbachL. J.MeehlP. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52(4), 281–302. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040957
DunbarR. I. (2011). Constraints on the evolution of social institutions and their implications for information flow. Journal of Institutional Economics, 7(3), 345–371. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137410000366
15.
DunnW. S.MountM. K.BarrickM. R.OnesD. S. (1995). Relative importance of personality and general mental ability in managers’ judgments of applicant qualifications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(4), 500–509. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.80.4.500
16.
DuvalS.WicklundR. A. (1972). A theory of objective self awareness. Academic Press.
FunderD. C.OzerD. J. (2019). Evaluating effect size in psychological research: Sense and nonsense. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2(2), 156–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919847202
23.
GelmanA. (2008). Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations. Statistics in Medicine, 27(15), 2865–2873. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.3107
24.
GoslingS. D.KoS. J.MannarelliT.MorrisM. E. (2002). A room with a cue: Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(3), 379–398. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.82.3.379
25.
HallJ. A.RosipJ. C.LeBeauL. S.HorganT. G.CarterJ. D. (2006). Attributing the sources of accuracy in unequal-power dyadic communication: Who is better and why?Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(1), 18–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.01.005
26.
HoveM. J.RisenJ. L. (2009). It’s all in the timing: Interpersonal synchrony increases affiliation. Social Cognition, 27(6), 949–960. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2009.27.6.949
27.
HumanL. J.BiesanzJ. C. (2011). Through the looking glass clearly: Accuracy and assumed similarity in well-adjusted individuals’ first impressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 349–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021850
28.
HumanL. J.BiesanzJ. C.ParisottoK. L.DunnE. W. (2012). Your best self helps reveal your true self: Positive self-presentation leads to more accurate personality impressions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(1), 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611407689
29.
HumanL. J.CarlsonE. N.GeukesK.NestlerS.BackM. D. (2020). Do accurate personality impressions benefit early relationship development? The bidirectional associations between accuracy and liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(1), 199–212. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000214
30.
HumanL. J.MignaultM. C.BiesanzJ. C.RogersK. H. (2019). Why are well-adjusted people seen more accurately? The role of personality-behavior congruence in naturalistic social settings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(2), 465–482. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000193
31.
HumanL. J.RogersK. H.BiesanzJ. C. (2020). In person, online, and up close: The cross-contextual consistency of expressive accuracy. European Journal of Personality, 35(1), 120–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2272
32.
HumanL. J.SandstromG. M.BiesanzJ. C.DunnE. W. (2013). Accurate first impressions leave a lasting impression: The long-term effects of accuracy on relationship development. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 4(4), 395–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550612463735
33.
International Telecommunication Union. (1996). P.800: Methods for subjective determination of transmission quality (Rec. P.800).
34.
JohnO. P.SrivastavaS. (1999). The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In PervinL. A.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 102–138). Guilford Press.
35.
KerrL. G.HumanL. J. (2023). Does accuracy matter? A review of the consequences of accurate personality impressions as a function of context and content. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 17(1), Article e12718. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12718
36.
KooT.LiM. (2016). A guideline of selecting and reporting intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 15, 155–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012
37.
LaiJ.WidmarN. O. (2020). Revisiting the digital divide in the COVID-19 era. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(1), 458–464. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13104
38.
LetzringT. D. (2008). The good judge of personality: Characteristics, behaviors, and observer accuracy. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(4), 914–932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2007.12.003
39.
McShaneB. B.BöckenholtU. (2016). Planning sample sizes when effect sizes are uncertain: The power-calibrated effect size approach. Psychological Methods, 21(1), 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000036
40.
MignaultM. C.HeymanJ. L.BiesanzJ. C.HumanL. J. (2022). On being and feeling transparent: Examining expressive accuracy awareness in first impressions of personality and links to well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 96, 104185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104185
41.
MignaultM. C.KerrL. G.HumanL. J. (2023). Just be yourself? Effects of an authenticity manipulation on expressive accuracy in first impressions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14(5), 562–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/194855062211010
42.
MossbergerK.TolbertC. J.HamiltonA. (2012). Measuring digital citizenship: Mobile access and broadband. International Journal of Communication, 6, 2492–2598.
43.
NadlerR. D. (2020). Understanding “Zoom fatigue”: Theorizing spatial dynamics as third skins in computer-mediated communication. Computers and Composition, 58, 102613. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102613
44.
OrehekE.HumanL. J.SayetteM. A.DimoffJ. D.WinogradR. P.SherK. J. (2020). Self-expression while drinking alcohol: Alcohol influences personality expression during first impressions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(1), 109–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219843933
45.
R Core Team. (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/
46.
ReberR.SchwarzN.WinkielmanP. (2004). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience?Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364–382. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
47.
RogersK. H.BiesanzJ. C. (2019). Reassessing the good judge of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(1), 186–200. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000197
48.
ScherwitzL.HelmreichR. (1973). Interactive effects of eye contact and verbal content on interpersonal attraction in dyads. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034270
49.
SchoenenbergK.RaakeA.KoeppeJ. (2014). Why are you so slow? Misattribution of transmission delay to attributes of the conversation partner at the far-end. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 72(5), 477–487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.02.004
SwannW. B.Jr.PelhamB. W.KrullD. S. (1989). Agreeable fancy or disagreeable truth? Reconciling self-enhancement and self-verification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(5), 782–791. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.5.782
52.
TisseraH.MignaultM.-C.HumanL. J. (2023). “Zooming” in on positive and accurate metaperceptions in first impressions: Examining the links with social anxiety and liking in online video interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(4), 852–873. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000457
53.
VallacherR. R. (1978). Objective self-awareness and the perception of others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4(1), 63–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616727800400113
54.
VazireS. (2010). Who knows what about a person? The self–other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281–300. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017908
55.
WallaceJ. D.BiesanzJ. C. (2020). Examining the consistency of the good target across contexts and domains of personality. Journal of Personality, 89(2), 188–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12574
56.
WangW.WuJ.NepalS. K.daSilvaA.HedlundE.MurphyE.RogersC.HuckinsJ. F. (2021). On the transition of social interaction from in-person to online: Predicting changes in social media usage of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic based on Pre-COVID-19 on-campus colocation. In Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (pp. 425–434). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3462244.3479888
57.
WestT. V.KennyD. A. (2011). The truth and bias model of judgment. Psychological Review, 118(2), 357–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022936
58.
WiederholdB. K. (2020). Connecting through technology during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Avoiding “Zoom fatigue.”Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 23(7), 437–438. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.29188.bkw
59.
WoodD.FurrR. M. (2016). The correlates of similarity estimates are often misleadingly positive: The nature and scope of the problem, and some solutions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20(2), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868315581119
60.
ZhaoN.ZhangX.NoahJ. A.TiedeM.HirschJ. (2023). Separable processes for live “in-person” and live “zoom-like” faces. Imaging Neuroscience, 58, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00027
61.
ZimmermannJ.SchindlerS.KlausG.LeisingD. (2018). The effect of dislike on accuracy and bias in person perception. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(1), 80–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617703167
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
