How To Read People: 5 Secrets Backed By Research - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Good News: your first impressions are usually pretty accurate .

Bad News: whether they are wrong or right, first impressions affect us in a big way and we are slow to change them .

Sam Gosling is about as close to Sherlock Holmes as you can get. He's a personality psychologist at the University of Texas and author of the book Snoop . Here's Sam:

First impressions are often quite helpful but you have to be willing to update them quite rapidly. That's what's very hard to do.

A class ring. T-shirts with slogans. Tattoos. Pay attention to them because they're usually accurate signs. Here's Sam :

Now this is all pretty personal. So what about if you're trying to read someone in a professional context?

Want to know if someone is good at their job? Then watch them do it for thirty seconds - or even just six seconds . Your guess about their competence is more likely to be right than wrong:

Want to know if someone's smart? Research says this is hard to tell from mere appearance when evaluating adults. But there's a trick that can help. Are they funny? Because funny people are smart :

(To learn more about how to flirt scientifically, click here .)

Alright, we've learned a lot about how to read people. Let's round it up and learn the real way you can project a better image so when people read you, you come off looking great...

Here's how to read people 101:

• Don't make the usual mistakes: Take context, clusters, baseline, and biases into consideration.
• First impressions are often accurate: With a number of traits you can trust your gut. But know which ones.
• Trust mimicry and emotional expression: But they have to be sustained and consistent.
• Awful people have tells: Pay attention to notice them. And look for narcissists in flashy clothing.
• Deepening voice and touching says "flirting": True for both men and women.

And so now that we've been through a dizzying amount of research on reading others, how can you make sure you come off well when others read you?

Do you need to pay more attention to your body language? Nope.

Your facial expressions or your "behavioral mimicry"? Double nope.

When I spoke to Olivia Fox-Cabane , author of The Charisma Myth , she said all of that is doomed to fail unless you have an acting Oscar on your shelf:

...trying to control your facial expressions is not just impossible, it will even backfire. Since the micro-expressions will be incongruent with the main expression, they'll give the impression that something is not quite right and you can end up seeming fake - which, of course, ruins trust and charisma...

Next week I'll cover what research says can help you do that. To make sure you don't miss it, join my weekly email here .

In the end, it really is what's on the inside that matters. We can shape that and smooth it, but you can't go through life acting for any considerable stretch.

So try something simple: be the best you that you can be .