Why are we so critical of ourselves after meeting someone new? Self-protection.

We tend to be defensive socially. When we meet new people, we’re often concerned with how we’re coming off. Our anxiety causes us to be so concerned with the impression we’re creating that we fail to notice that the same is true of the other person as well. A new study led by Erica J. Boothby, published on September 5 in Psychological Science, reveals how people tend to like us more in first encounters than we’d ever suspect.

We spend an inordinate — some would say “unhealthy” — amount of time worrying about what others think of us. We don’t really know how we come off, in truth, but we regularly construct a metaperception of ourselves that represents how we think we do. And we tend to be unkind to ourselves, according to the new study.

The “liking gap”

What the study reveals is that there’s a major disconnect between the way two people are likely to judge each other on first meeting, but it’s not what you might expect. Their experiments show that in a first encounter, each person thinks well of the other person but assumes that they themselves have come off poorly. Since both parties feel this way, an almost comical asymmetry occurs, with a significant gap between how we’re viewed and how we think we’re viewed.

Co-author Margaret S. Clark tells YaleNews, “We call this a ‘liking gap,’ and it can hinder our ability to develop new relationships.” She adds, “They seem to be too wrapped up in their own worries about what they should say or did say to see signals of others’ liking for them, which observers of the conservations see right away.”

Since both people like the other person more than they assume they themselves are being liked, “We’re self-protectively pessimistic and do not want to assume the other likes us before we find out if that’s really true.” This makes the process more awkward than it needs to be, risking the loss of an opportunity for enjoyment. Later on, “We critically monitor ourselves and regret not telling the joke more smoothly or worry about whether we sound as if we are bragging.”

The study’s experiments

Boothby and her colleagues performed a series of experiments.

Experiment 1a: Is There a Liking Gap?

In this test, the researchers recruited 36 people from the Yale community, 72.2 percent female, and 27.8 percent male. The average age of participants was 23.25 years, with a standard deviation of 6.12 years.

Each subject was introduced to a same-sex partner, and, having been provided some ice-breaking questions to keep the conversation going, the two were seated side-by-side at a large table and tasked with chatting until a researcher returned in five minutes. The conversation was recorded on a nearby computer that featured a large analog-style clock to assist the new acquaintances in pacing themselves. Following the conversation, the subjects were separated and asked to rate their agreement with eight statements. Four statements assessed how much they liked the other person, while the remaining four statements evaluated how much they believed the other person liked them. The researchers concluded that people significantly underestimated how much others liked them after a brief conversation, which they referred to as the “liking gap.”

A follow-up test, 1b, was conducted to determine if subjects were clearly indicating their approval of each other during the conversation. The researchers found that while the signals were present, they were not being accurately perceived. Study 2 explored why the liking gap exists by having paired same-sex conversants engage in conversations without any icebreakers. The results showed that participants had more negative thoughts about how others viewed them compared to how they viewed others, leading to a belief that their conversation partners did not like them.

In Study 3, it was determined that the liking gap persisted across conversations of varying lengths, with participants consistently underestimating how much their conversation partners liked them. Study 4 evaluated the liking gap in a real-world setting, with participants underestimating how interesting their conversation partners would find them both before and after the conversation. Study 5 examined the long-term effects of the liking gap and found that it persisted over the course of a year, indicating the importance of first impressions in forming relationships.

Overall, the research suggests that people tend to underestimate how much others like them, highlighting the significance of initial interactions in shaping perceptions and relationships. So, when meeting someone new, remember that they are likely as preoccupied with what you think of them as you are with what they think of you.