Halx

I'm curious to gather thoughts on this matter of what makes people more credible or less credible.

I contend that there are several factors, both learned and preconceived, regarding a person that will affect how you perceive their input. What I mean is, you can hear the same thing from two different strangers, but you will be more inclined to listen/believe one person instead of the other because of various factors. These factors work together to create degrees of Instinctual Credibility. What exactly are these factors?

1. Sexual Attraction - If the person is sexually attractive to you or has prominent sensual features, this increases the amount of attention that you pay to them.

2. Stature - If someone's height, facial expression or musculature intimidates you, calms you, or puts you off, this will affect the effect of the words coming from their mouth.

3. Dress - A guy in a t-shirt and jeans will sound different than a man in a uniform. A well-dressed individual will command more authority and will more easily persuade than a bohemian hippy.

After the initial reaction comes the learned factors. Information, tone of voice, tact, these all go towards how you take the information in. However, the instinctual credibility is the barrier that allows the information to even be heard the way it should be.

Taking that a step further, if you know something about the person before you meet them (perhaps someone has talked about them before you met them) how much does that affect how you? If you're a female and your friend told you about how good her boyfriend is in bed, would that make you more receptive to his conversation when you finally get to meet him? If your buddy bitches and rags on someone, how will that affect you when you finally meet that person.

The saintly thing to say is that none of that affects you. You form your own opinions based on what you perceive, right? Will someone admit to being affected to preconceived notions or am I barking up a tree that does not exist?

There have been studies on Instinctual Credibility. We know that a person in uniform can make people do more than a person in plain clothes can. We know that a highly sexual person can make people do more than a detestable person can. We also know there are exceptions to the rule. Still, do we recognize how we are affected by these instincts within us?

(This entire thought has been brought to you by the notion that if my wife tells her friends that I have a big dick, they'd pay more attention to me when I meet them. She doesn't think so. Let's get opinions.)

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Willravel

I don't factor in sexual attraction in my perception of credibility. Attention, sure, but credibility? No.

I use different nonverbal cues to ascertain credibility.

Speech patterns are very telling, usually. When someone repeats a word often, such as "actually" or "unfortunately", they are demonstrating either nervousness or a small vocabulary. Neither is a sign of credibility, imho. Poor language either communicates comfortability or an emotional response of some kind (and also possibly a limited vocabulary).

Eye movement is absolutely key. Where a person looks while communicating says more than the words they are saying, usually.

Top left = visually imagined images
Top right = visually remembered images
Left = auditory imagined
Right = auditory remembered
Bottom left = smell, feel, taste
Bottom right = internal dialogue

Whether this is innate, I don't know. I learned about this back in high school psych class and again in college (you can find info online about it, I found the image here: http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies_eyes.php)

Dress? Meh.

Plan9

Well, they're going to stare at your crotch more.

...

My military uniform worked extremely well as a social lubricant.

People assume strength, respect, assertiveness. Nobody fucks with you assuming you have a decent physique under the camouflage.

Wearing the thing... wow, felt like it was made out of Teflon.

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uncle phil

kinda like cosmoline?

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allaboutmusic

I think we are all conditioned to some degree to associate credibility with things like confidence, authority, sexual energy etc... or at least the appearance of them. When we meet people, we typically have to decide quite quickly whether we trust them or not, and if so, how much.

I don't know how much of this is biological and how much is social though... I expect that aspects tied in with biological function are instinctive (such as wanting to believe people who are attractive to us), but maybe the attractiveness is instinctual and the self-deception aspect is learned.

Martian

I am a salesman and, modesty aside, I'm pretty good at my job. As such, I know that a big part of the job is presentation; not of the product, but of myself. If I act like I know what I'm talking about, people will assume that I do. Being the ethical and honest guy that I am, I of course make sure this is the case.

Conversely, if I behave as if I'm unsure or lacking in confidence, people will not take my words at face value even if I do know the subject authoritatively. The three factors you've listed all play a role and are an important aspect of the job. I do try to make myself as attractive as possible, I try to be aware of my own mannerisms in order to appear friendly and easygoing and I most definitely make sure that I am appropriately dressed. There's also more that goes into it, such as tone of voice, speech patterns, body language and even vocabularly, which should be tailored to match the individual - my manner of speech when speaking with someone who introduces himself as 'Dr. Doe' will be very different from the man in biballs who introduces himself as 'Jim Bob.'

As to your specific question, I suspect that it would affect their reactions to you, but that it would be a subtle change. The impact of your own actions and mannerisms will play a much greater role in how these people perceive you - if you don't walk the walk, they'll assume your wife is just exaggerating.

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Skutch

1. Why would you want more attention from your wife's friends?
1a. Why would you want your wife's friends knowing you have a big dick?

ring

I am wondering if ' instinctual credibility' might equate with 'Knee jerk stereotyping' at times.

We all have some semblance of a 'spidy sense' also.

I will re-read up on the whole 'confidence game tactics'

forced teaming..etc..

DaveOrion

Actually I agree with the sexual attraction comment, but unfortunately I don't agree with the vocabulary bit. I don't equate vocabulary or education with intelligence or credibility. In fact I'm probably much more likely to find somebody dressed in blue jeans & a T-shirt more credible than somebody in a suit. I'm always reminded of salesmen (no offense meant towards Martian) when I see some one in a suit, who's trying to sell me something I don't need or something more than I need. Since I don't impulse buy & always research the product before I buy, I have little use for salesmen.

Since lying seems to be programmed into our DNA, the best way to judge credibility is by getting to know someone better. I rarely find new acquaintances credible, now matter how they dress, speak or in which direction their eyes move. A bold face liar is usually fairly easy to spot though.....

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analog

Depends on the area. It works heavily off of stereotypes.

More often than not, though, it's going to be an imposing physique, well-dressed and well-spoken.

However, let's say you want your computer fixed. You go into a computer repair shop and see two people sitting there. One looks like a professional businessman - the other looks like a professional geek. Which one are you likely to address?

Going for a tattoo? Do you want the well-dressed businessman with a purely professional mode of speech, or do you want the dude with 50 tattoos and a relaxed, friendly demeanor?

I like playing with credibility. I often intentionally dress down when making large purchases, for example, because then most salesmen leave me alone, assuming i'm another guy coming in to look around for an hour with no dreams of ever buying any of the stuff. If they do engage me, they always lowball me on whatever I'm looking for... I don't get the top-end sales pitch (which I don't always want) because they assume I'm either a waste of their time or if I DO buy something, it'll be cheap. If I suddenly need more help than they've decided to give me, based on their stereotyping me, I just lay it on the line.

I'm the same way, and I worked commission sales for the first 7 or 8 years of my working life.

ring

Does any one see a correlation between these ideas and 'Stanislavski's'
method acting?

If I wear a leather jacket does that make me feel..?

I will agree that time gives us perspective to observe and document behavior,
yet I have also seen sociopaths take their time, building a nest of lies and confusion.

If I believe in statistics, I only have to worry about one in twenty five people on that accord.

Your thoughts?

Reese

I think the whole thing goes back to predator/prey instincts. A Zebra learns early that lions aren't to be messed with and they're going to dash when they see/smell one. Even if put in a cage with a tamest lion in the world and even if the lion never does anything to hurt or scare the Zebra it's still going to be wary of every move the lion makes even if they've been living together for years.

I don't know when you learn it, I assume the instinct is to act this way, not who/what to act this way toward. In our herd of humans the Largest man or the person in the uniform is the dominate one, the sexy person gets the most attention. It's instinct. After you've learned about the people your acquired knowledge kicks in and the fact that someone is stupid outweighs the fact that they're 6'6 250lb, or that they're a cop.

I think it explains alot about human interaction, subconscious racism/sexism among other things.

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host

It's probably counter to your wife's perceived interests to tell her friends that you're "gifted", or to admit it to you. She may not even consciously recognize it.

allaboutmusic

Actually I believe that there have been studies that at least some animals bred in captivity still maintain a measure of their instincts, and will freak out at first sight of a natural predator even if they've never seen one before.

Plan9

Or maybe just because it is big, new, and kinda menacing?

I've never seen a Martian before... but if I did... I'd probably be scared.

As you know, the difference between the uniform and cosmoline is that you can get the uniform off in a minutes w/ buttons, not a few days with a bronze brush.

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MSD

No, a uniform is possible to remove.
When you make it to full member status and see the exhibition board where the pictures of his dick are, you'll understand.

Hyacinthe

I'm very firm believer of instinctual credibility though I am not sure whether it is entirely based on sexual attraction, stature and dress. Personally I tend to base the credibility of others on smaller non-verbal cues, body language is an amazing thing, for example if someone is leaning forward into a conversation with someone else and motioning with their hands while they talk I am more likely to consider them credible then someone sitting straight and speaking in a monotone. That may not make sense to most of you but I believe that if you're passionate about something you are more likely to be well informed about that subject matter. Conversely bad body language can put me off intelligent and well spoken people, if someone I have just met invades my personal space (most Australians have an extremely large area of personal space) it makes me uncomfortable and they loose a small amount of credibility for not noticing this and reacting accordingly.

I think for me these reactions are close to subconcious, I've never really thought about how I select the people I choose to believe.


In regards to:
I can honestly say that the opinions of my friends don't effect me in the slightest when it comes to meeting new people. I have people my friends all adore and yet when I met them I developed an instinctual and strong dislike for them and the opposite has also happened. My friends have all said a guy is gorgeous then when I meet him he tries to convince me that you only need to worry about skin cancer if you live directly under a hole in the ozone layer, after a comment like that it would take ALOT to make me consider him credible no matter how pretty he may be.

Maybe this is due due to having been judged on stereotypes so much myself, no offence to Martian or anyone that works in sales but I hate salesmen, specifically computer salesmen. Just because I am female does not mean that I know nothing about computers or gaming, if I come into the store and ask for the exact model of graphics card I am looking for then it's generally what I want, not the less expensive one that won't actually work with the rest of my system, I appreciate they're trying to save me money but just give me what I asked for. I've actually come close to yelling at a sales clerk before when he didn't seem to understand that NO I did not want them to install my new video card for me and NO I did not want to drop my system off I was more then capable of connecting, installing and getting the necessary drivers by myself.

I guess having been exposed to these beliefs helps me to judge individuals as individuals, I like to think that generally my choices in this regard are fairly good.

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flstf

I read somewhere years ago that some people tend to look directly at you when talking and away from you when listening and others tend to look directly at you when listening and away from you when talking. This supposedly leads to a lack of trust and communication between groups, (races, genders, etc) if they tend to be one way or another.