How do I perceive you?

December 25, 2006 5:18 PM

In Eddie Izzard's Dressed to Kill, he says that how people respond to you is based 70% on how you look, 20% on how you sound, and 10% on what you say. What branch of psychology studies these reactions?

And even though it's a rather broad and incomplete statement, is it roughly correct?

posted by The_Partridge_Family to science & nature (14 comments total)

social psychology?
posted by MadamM at 5:29 PM on December 25, 2006

Social psychology.


Not sure about where the numbers come from. 70% chance they're from some pop psych article. 20% he heard it from a friend. 10% he pulled them out of his ass. So: probably not all that correct.
posted by logicpunk at 5:36 PM on December 25, 2006

...and 73.43% of statistics pulled out of your ass are more impressive with extra decimal places of precision.

The real meaning of the Izzard statement is: "you look like crap, have a whiney voice, and are a loser."
posted by hexatron at 5:45 PM on December 25, 2006

I don't know where he heard it from, but I believe I've read more credible sources that say that body language makes up a large percentage of communication. I'd say the idea is roughly correct, the numbers are bogus.
posted by Deathalicious at 7:29 PM on December 25, 2006

This article explains why depressed people have a negative impact on others through the idea of "it's not what you say it's how you say it". The title is "Paralanguage and the interpersonal impact of dysphoria", so searching for Paralanguage may be useful.
posted by Deathalicious at 7:33 PM on December 25, 2006

Sure, and it's also based on what was said before you, where you are, time of day, and other diminishing factors. I doubt it's easy to quantify, since there are so many situations where any aspect will weigh more.
posted by ardgedee at 8:37 PM on December 25, 2006

Nicholas Boothman, a licensed master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming (the art and science of how the brain affects human connections), makes almost an identical claim in his book. If you're really interested, you might want to check it out (it's on iTunes as well).
posted by JPowers at 9:11 PM on December 25, 2006

Social psychology is the field in question.

I don't think anyone has provided more than a WAG at the percentages, but a lot has been written on the importance of appearance in human interactions.

Here is a representative paper. The references section provides a nice list of the classic papers on the topic.
posted by tkolar at 10:16 PM on December 25, 2006

I think the sociology perspective known as symbolic interactionism would also study such exchanges.
posted by luriete at 10:22 PM on December 25, 2006

Not only that, but you've only got three seconds to make a favorable first impression.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:58 PM on December 25, 2006

"licensed master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming"

Sweet! Where can I get one of those.

Repeating:
Psychology
Social psychology
with a pinch of Psychodynamics

There's a fair amount of this kind of research being done together with neuroscientists, exposing a person to stimulus while scanning and analyzing the brain's reactions.
posted by Ookseer at 12:46 AM on December 26, 2006

Ookseer wrote...

"licensed master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming"

Sweet! Where can I get one of those.

Just print yourself up a certificate on the computer. The "license" has no meaning whatsoever legally, so it's not like you'd be forging an official document.

They might get you on trademark infringement though.
posted by tkolar at 1:26 AM on December 26, 2006

I was on a Project Management course the other day, and we moved onto the subtopic of dealing with difficult people confidently. The trainer told us that the 70/20/10% rule that everyone touts actually came from a small group test that was carried out once and involved only about 7 people. The results were published, and they seem to make sense, which is why it's popular, but it wasn't a big study or anything.

Sorry I can't be any more specific - I was fending off a migraine during the training!
posted by unmusic at 2:18 AM on December 26, 2006

Not sure if this is completely right and related, but wasn't it "Moravian's Theory" that gave us the 70%, 23% & 7% stats for body language, tone and actual words respectively.

Suspect Izzard may have been adapting this, which I understand was based on sound scientific study and certainly appears to be accurate in practise.
posted by pettins at 3:13 AM on December 26, 2006