Two people talking in a restaurant
Having good people skills or being likable maximizes effective and productive human interaction that benefits everyone. These various attributes and competencies allow a person to mingle with other people. It would look as if you have opened Pandora's Box when you master having good people skills.
Nicholas Boothman talked in an interview about the essential tricks we can learn to make people like us immediately and also improving our people skills in his book How to make people like you in 90 seconds or less. It is important to note that you can't stop people from making snap decisions whether they like you or not. First impressions happen during the first second and a half so it is important to learn these tricks:
1. Adjust Your Attitude
The first thing you need to do is to adjust your attitude. A really useful attitude is welcoming, curious or enthusiastic and not acting bored, rude or hostile. In meeting new people try to display positive emotions because people unconsciously feel the emotion of the people around them. If you want to communicate positive emotions, you must make other people happy when they are around you.
People judge others based on their warmth and competence. So if you display yourself as a non-competitive and friendly person, they will feel likely they can trust you. If you seem to have high economic or educational status, people are more likely to respect you.
You should display warmth first before competence, especially during business meetings.
2. Eye Contact
Making eye contact is one of the most powerful ways to connect to other people because it is about trust. Eye contact makes you more persuasive and as a result, convincing the people around you that you can be trusted and a warm person.
3. Smile
A smile sends an unconscious signal that a person is happy and confident. One study by the University of Wyoming on 100 undergraduate women regarding whether they like more a person smiling or not as shown in the picture given to them. Their results showed that regardless of the women's position in the photos, the participants find the one smiling more appealing.
So the next time you meet someone new, try to display a big smile on your face. But not so much because it looks creepy.
4. Synchronize Your Body Language
While looking in the eyes of the person you're talking to and smiling, synchronize with their overall body language in a respectful way. Mirroring someone's action facilitates liking. The "chameleon effect" was documented by the New York University in 1999, it occurs when people unconsciously mimic each other's behavior.
5. Find Common Ground
Creating a good first impression is all about having a common ground. People are more attracted to those that are similar to them, according to Theodore Newcomb. This is called the similarity-attraction effect.
In Newcomb's study, he measured the participants' attitudes on controversial topics and assigned them to reside in a University of Michigan owned house. By the end of the study, these participants liked more each other when they have the same attitudes towards the topics measured.
Likewise, the recent study from the University of Virginia and Washington University in St. Louis concluded that army recruits tend to like more each other if they share negative traits rather than when they have the same positive ones.
At the end of Nicholas Boothman's interview, he left with three little phrases: be brave, take risks, and blame nobody for anything. It means that you should be brave and take risks because that is how you will grow and don't blame anyone for your choices.
