Attention promotes accurate impression formation

Objective An ability to form accurate impressions of others is vital for adaptive social behavior in humans. Here, we examined if attending to persons more is associated with greater accuracy in personality impressions. Method We asked 42 observers (36 females; mean age = 21 years, age range = 18–28; expected power = 0.96) to form personality impressions of unacquainted individuals (i.e., targets) from video interviews while their attentional behavior was assessed using eye tracking. We examined whether (a) attending more to targets benefited accuracy, (b) attending to specific body parts (e.g., face vs. body) drove this association, and (c) targets' ease of personality readability modulated these effects. Results Paying more attention to a target was associated with forming more accurate personality impressions. Attention to the whole person contributed to this effect, with this association occurring independently of targets’ ease of readability. Conclusions These findings show that attending more to a person is associated with increased accuracy and thus suggest that attention promotes social adaption by supporting accurate social perception.