As a career prosecutor, I have previously written about whether “looks could kill” and the tendency within the criminal justice system to jump to conclusions about the guilt of a criminal defendant simply by looking.[i] In daily life, we make assessments as well about each new person we meet. Simply by looking at the face, we decide whether a person is positive and warm, or negative and potentially threatening; very important information. And we are apparently better at making these assessments than we think.
First Impressions: Decoding the Face
Alex L. Jones and colleagues (2026) explored the extent to which people judge others on first impression through examining their face.[ii] They list a variety of examples demonstrating the power of first impressions of facial appearance, including predicting election outcomes, judicial rulings, choosing a partner, and deciding who to hire. They also acknowledge that first impressions formed from faces affect a variety of assessments including dominance, aggressiveness, attractiveness, competence, intelligence, and trustworthiness.
Against a backdrop of research examining dimensions of dominance and valence, Jones and his team used natural language processing to develop “topics” from participants’ descriptions of their first impression of 2222 face images presented in unconstrained natural poses. The faces varied in sex, ethnicity, age, pose, and emotional expression. Participants were presented with each face in sequence and asked to describe their first impressions by entering text into a text box.
The two topics that emerged were positive emotional valence and warmth, and negative emotional valence and potential threat. Yet they also found we perceive much more from observing faces than just emotional disposition.
First Impressions Include Perceived Intentions
Apparently, we not only form ideas of who someone is from their face, but we also form expectations about how they are going to act. The research by Jones and his team first asked their 55 participants to provide spontaneous descriptions after looking at each of 66 faces. The first category they identified and examined, valence, was linked with traits such as trustworthiness, responsibility, caring, emotional stability, and sociability. This category was interpreted as forming an impression of other people’s prosocial intentions. The second category, dominance, was linked with traits such as dominance, meanness, and aggressiveness, and reflected impressions of capacity to inflict harm on the perceiver.
Instinctive Trait Identification
Despite the valuable information available by looking, many people likely underestimate their proficiency at reading others. Compared with other types of first impression research, Jones and his team note that their research demonstrated how natural language provides a workable alternative approach to studying first impressions through capturing information about processes of first impressions as they occur spontaneously. They showed how free‐text responses of facial first impressions revealed the two foundational topics that reflect individual perceptions of positive emotional valence, warmth and approachability, and negative emotional valence and potential threat.
As a practical matter, we are likely unaware of how much information we receive and perceive in daily social interaction, particularly in public with a wide range of people. Yet whether on the metro or in a meeting, from the classroom to the conference room, when we prioritize our attention on our social surroundings rather than our device, we can discern a large body of interpersonal information heightening our situational awareness and increasing our ability to stay both safe and sociable within our physical environment.
Keeping your eyes open and focused on others alerts you to danger, and it helps you spot opportunities for connection. Socialize wisely, respectfully, and responsibly.