Positive Impression and Positive Resonance - Claudia Graf

Positivity resonance is:

• a strong connection between two or more people. It can be friends, couples, colleagues, but also strangers
• it is temporary
• can also be called shared positive experience
• influenced by 3 characteristics:

(Fredrickson, 2013)

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🗂️ Show me a scientific study!

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There is a positive association between perceived positivity resonance and flourishing mental health.

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There is a negative association between perceived positivity resonance and depressive and illness symptoms.

(Major et al., 2018)

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Source

Source of content and table: Major, B. C., Le Nguyen, K. D., Lundberg, K. B., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2018). Well-being correlates of perceived positivity resonance: Evidence from trait and episode-level assessments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44 (12), 1631-1647.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8750237/

Positive impression means:

“to behave in a way that makes people have a good opinion of you.”

(Macmillan Dictionary)

The dramaturgical theory of human interaction by Erving Goffman assumes that human beings continiously play roles. He differentiates between backstage and onstage.

• The backstage is invisible to the audience, so no acting is needed.
• The onstage area instead is visible to the audience and includes requisites and stage design.

(Kreitz, 2016; Goffman, 1983)

In order to create positive impressions, we can use different impression management tactics. A recent one is the choice of sustainable food.

Sustainable food choices as an impression management strategy are influenced by the following 3 factors:

Status striving: sustainable food is more beneficial for our society in the long run. Sustainable food is more expensive and especially when consumed in public, can motivate food choices.

Group cooperation: Consumers making sustainable food choices are perceived as more altruistic and cooperative.

Desire to attract a partner: Sustainable food choices are often more associated with women. However, men purchasing sustainable products are perceived to be more altruistic and therefore interpreted more positively. (Folwarczny et al., 2023)

As a leader, be warm and competent!

What do warm and competent mean?

Warmth

Competent

Holoien and Fiske (2013) found a compensatory relationship between warmth and competence in impression management:

Participants who wanted to appear warm preferred to appear less competent than participants who wanted to just make a general positive impression (=control group). (Holoien & Fiske, 2013)

Participants who wanted to appear competent, preferred to appear less warm than the control group. (Holoien & Fiske, 2013)

In the figure below by Zenger (2018) you can see that top managers were perceived to be more dominant in warmth than in competence. On the contrary, supervisors were perceived to be more dominant in competence than in warmth.

“Competence alone is career limiting. The combination of Competence and Warmth helps leaders to advance to higher levels and appears to lead to higher levels of employee engagement.” Zenger (2018)

Impression management (IM) tactics for job applicants

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🗂️ Show me a scientific study!

In this study Kristof-Brown et al. (2002) tries to understand:

❓ what personality traits of job applicants influence their use of a certain IM tactic in the context of a job interview?

❓ how this selected IM tactic affects the perceived Person-Job fit (PJ Fit) and the perceived similarity between applicant and interviewer.

Results and key takeaways:

• extraverted applicants often used self-promotion as an IM tactic, which had a great influence on the perceived PJ Fit by the interviewer.
• agreeable applicants made more use of non-verbal behavior, which strongly influenced perceived Applicant-Recruiter Similarity.
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Control your non-verbal behavior!
• prior interview training was linked to self-promotion.
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Train for your job interview! It can even help agreeable applicants to promote themselves in a better way.
• negative relation between GPA and other IM tactics was shown. Probably, applicants with lower GPA make use of ingratiation to cover their lower GPA results.
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Dont’use other IM tactics! Don’t use tactics such as ingratiation and talking about private topics.

(Kristof-Brown et al., 2002)

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Source

Source of content and illustration:

Kristof-Brown, A., Barrick, M. R., & Franke, M. (2002). Applicant impression management: Dispositional influences and consequences for recruiter perceptions of fit and similarity. Journal of Management, 28(1), 27-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0149-2063(01)00131-3

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📕 Check-list for your interview preparation

Before the interview:

Inform yourself about the industry, the company and the job you are applying for. Have a look at:

Company website

Social media

Articles and reports

Press releases

Competitors of the company, by using Owler

Salary offered, by using:

Arbeitgeber bewerten ✍️ Finde deinen besten Arbeitgeber 🤝

Bewerte anonym Unternehmenskultur, Gehalt, Benefits und mehr oder finde den besten Arbeitgeber für dich auf der führenden Arbeitgeber-Bewertungsplattform im deutschsprachigen Raum.

www.kununu.com

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Try to anticipate all possible questions!

Know yourself and prepare for stating it:

prepare questions for the interviewer

CV

strenghts and weaknesses

create an agenda for the interview

practice the answers for the questions you anticipated

(Shaikh, 2022)

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Source

Source of content:

Shaikh, F. (2022). Successful Interviewing. [Event Presentation]. TUM Alumni & Career. Online Event.

Integrity and morality as the most important characteristics of people

“You decide to be dishonest, stingy, uncharitable, egotistical, all the things people don’t like in other people.” (Warren Buffet)

According to Warren Buffet, the most important characteristic of a person is integrity.

(Farnam Street Media, n.d.)

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🗂️ Show me a scientific study!

The following study by Brambilla et al. (2019) assessed the importance of morality, sociability and competence in the context of impression updating.

Morality is more important than sociability for positive impressions.

Changes in moral information

⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

greater change in impression than for sociability or competence information.

Results and key takeaways:

• in the creation of positive impression morality is more important than sociability
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People who are perceived as moral are seen more positively. So show yourself moral!
• adding moral information about a person resulted in a greater change in impression than added information regarding sociability and competence: this can be observed when adding more negative information as well as through adding more positive information

(Brambilla et al., 2019)

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Sources

Source of content and graph:

Source of content and graph: Brambilla, M., Carraro, L., Castelli, L., & Sacchi, S. (2019). Changing impressions: Moral character dominates impression updating. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 82, 64-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.01.003

🤌🏽 Use your body for good first impressions

How you can create a good first impression depends not only on your verbal communication, but also on your body language. In fact 55% of all communication is non-verbal. (Quick Learning Free Audiobooks, 2020)

There are 9 types of non-verbal communication skills:

(Wilson, 2021)

In the following section, you can have a closer look at Kinesics and Proxemics.

💃🏽 Kinesics

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🤩 Tell me more about it!

1. use an open attitude and body language:
• do not cover your heart with hands or arms
• do not cross your arms in front of your chest
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keep your arms open and hands visible
2. look people directly in the eye
3. smile
4. shake hands*
5. synchronize or mirror

(Quick Learning Free Audiobooks, 2020)

*Important tip regarding handshake by Joe Navarro (2023) 😎

Synchronize

= harmonizing your own body movements with the ones of your counterpart.

Applies not just to kinesics, so movement of your body, but also paralinguistics including your voice and intonation.

(Kuhnke, 2015)

Example for synchronization:

Mirror

= replicating the body movements of the counterpart

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Be careful, the other person could feel mocked!

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Interesting fact:

Steps synchronize when walking side by side. ➡️ This influences the impression we generate about the other person. (Kato et al., 2020)

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Sources

Source of content:

Kato, M., Kitagawa, N., Kimura, T., Takano, Y., Takagi, T., Hirose, H., & Kashino, M. (2020). Walking and talking independently predict interpersonal impressions. Acta Psychologica, 210, 103172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103172

Kuhnke, E. (2015). Body language for dummies (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/body-language-for/9781119067399/cover.xhtml

Quick Learning Free Audiobooks (2021, 25. August). How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less by Nicholas Boothman [Audiobook]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2RTg4zWLw

Wilson, C. (2021, June 8). Nonverbal Communication Skills: 19 Theories & Findings. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/nonverbal-communication/#types

Source of image:

Mizuno K. (2022). [Woman presenting herself] [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/smiling-woman-shaking-hands-with-person-in-office-12903034/

sketchify (n.d.). Group of friends [Graphic]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/icons/MAEDQGnn9YQ/

sketchify (n.d.). Hand gezeichnetes Teenager-Mädchen, das eine verwirrte Emotion zeigt [Graphic]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/icons/MAEUYsJJN8k/

Mathias Reding (2023). [Two politicians walking side by side] [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/strasse-gehen-manner-big-ben-16124527/

Source of video:

Raven Chai. (2016, October, 8). elevator experiment [Video]. Youtube. elevator experiment - YouTube

📏 Proxemics

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🤩 Tell me more about it!

Generally, when talking about proxemics and distance to others, we presume that everyone subdivides the space surrounding her/him in four zones:

1. Intimate zone

Is around 45 cm of distance, approximately an armlength, to the other person’s skin. This intimate zone is entered when we hug, kiss or whisper.

2. Personal zone

Lies between an armlength and 1,2 meters and is reserved for family and friends.

3. Social zone

Is for people we know by sight or we just do not know very well.

4. Public zone

It is for random social meetings or strangers we walk by outside.

The dimensions of the zones differ from person to person, as well as among different cultures or daytimes (for example at night). Also age and the emotional state we are in influence our desired distance.

(Navarro, 2018)

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Do not invade the intimate zone of other people!

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Source

Source of content:

Navarro, J. (2018, August 10). Our Spatial Needs. Our need for space is personal and cultural, and varies moment by moment. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/spycatcher/201808/our-spatial-needs

Source of image:

sketchify (n.d.). Mann Charakter [Graphic]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/icons/MADmdy3ZURo/

Source of video:

Patti Wood. (2012, October 8). Proxemics. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMBA_S88NrI

Practical tips for making people like you

1. 👂🏽Be interested and listen

be genuinely interested in other people. Showing real interest for others can for example lead them to better cooperate. You can show your genuine interest by listening carefully to the other person’s stories and interests. Be a good listener!

2. 🧠Know and remember names

People normally just know their own names. So remembering people’s right names and calling them by their names, even if they have a difficult one, is like a compliment and shows your major interest in them- by this, we can create positive impression.

3. 🔍Focus on the other person’s interest

People like to talk about their interests, so being informed about their particular interest, can help you build up a great conversation in everyday life. Moreover, knowing the goal and interest of a person in regard of your conversation (ex: your interest as a employee might differ from the interest of your customer) helps for steering the conversation in the right direction and creating a positive impression.

4. 💥Make them feel important

Feeling important is something we all desire. We can create this feeling in others by showing appreciation, respect and trust.

(Carnagie, 2010)

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Remember people’s names!

❓Why is remembering names so difficult?

William Atkinson (2021) tries to explain:



(Atkinson, 2021)

❓How can I remember names better?



1. Repeat name immediately.

For example in your response: “Hi, I am James.”; “Hi James, nice to meet you, I am Lisa.”.

2. Spell the name.

Ask the counterpart kindly to spell the name. It will help you to memorize it. Moreover, when hearing a new name write it down afterwards.

1. Visualize.

Try to create a mental image you can connect the person with. For example: imagine “Robert from the recruiting department” with a LinkedIn hiring symbol.

2. Link.

When you already know someone with the same name, try to link both people.

3. Decide.

Shifting interest to the name of the person is crucial. So, be interested and decide actively to remember the name.

(Hedges, 2013)

📱Apps for remembering names

The app Brainscape is based on flashcards. You can create flashcards with names of people and some basic information on the back of the flashcard.

(Brainscape: The Best Flashcards App | Make Flashcards Online)

The app Tibbits helps you to memorize names and a few facts about people. You can even give them lables and then search for them.

(Tibbits – Remember Names - Apps on Google Play)

The app Rememorate helps you to memorize names based on the environment you were surrounded by in the moment you met the person. Moreover, they use spaced repetition based on notifications and gamification.

(Rememorate | The Mobile App for Remembering Names)

Brainscape: The Best Flashcards App | Make Flashcards Online

Brainscape's spaced repetition system is proven to DOUBLE learning results! Find, make, and study flashcards online or in our mobile app. Serious learners only.



www.brainscape.com


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Source

Source of content:

Carnegie, D. (2010). How To Win Friends & Influence People. POCKET BOOKS.

Hedges, K. (2013, August 21). The Five Best Tricks To Remember Names. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/08/21/the-best-five-tricks-to-remember-names/?sh=73e2dee501f6

Source of image:

Ankianxo (n.d.). Unbenannt [Graphic]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/photos/MAE7KePLxO0/

cottonbro studio (2020). [Thumbs up] [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/hand-schild-neon-palme-4629633/

pixabay (n.d.). Vektorbild [Graphic]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/icons/MADQELKrkn4/

Source of podcast:

Atkinson, W. (Host). (2021, December). How to remember names (No. 11). [Audio podcast episode]. In Memory, How to Develop, Train and Use It. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/episode/496WmbtXLQl7vTCZLB0Vls

William Fortunato. (2020). [Man in red T-Shirt showing thumbs up] [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/mann-im-roten-rundhalsausschnitt-t-shirt-das-seinen-rechten-mittelfinger-zeigt-6140706/