Nonverbal Sensitivity in Judging Trustworthiness. Holier Than Thou Effect in Brief Exposure Situations.

Researches using brief exposure situations (Ambady et al., 1995; Murphy, 2005; Ambady et al., 2000, 2006) have proved that people can form accurate impressions on others and they could estimate others' performance, quality of interactions and also personality features or values. The present research tests participants accuracy in judging others trustworthiness, using thin slices research paradigm (Ambady et al. 2000). Two groups of Dutch students (45) and Romanian students (89) had to estimate others' behavior - individualist or prosocial - in an interdependency situation. The accuracy in judging unknown real others proved to be in relation to the size of the holier than thou effect and participants' real behavior in the situation. Subjects who tended to have an individualist orientation had fewer chances to decode others and tended to underestimate their prosociality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]