Should You Trust A Stranger? - Research

Scientists from the University of California (Berkeley) have discovered interesting facts about first impressions.

Research has shown that a healthy person will accurately recognize a stranger who is willing to help him in a difficult situation. According to scientists, their experiment can help in the treatment of people without an innate ability to empathize.

To begin with, scientists collected DNA samples from two dozen people who took part in the experiment. After that, the specialists divided the participants into pairs and asked them to take turns talking about their problems. At the same time, a video was kept, which tracked the behavior of the member of the couple who was currently listening to the story of the partner.

Further, university workers showed twenty-second excerpts from the received videos to a group of people who initially knew nothing about the characters on the screen. After watching, the members of this group were asked to rate their level of kindness, reliability and empathy for the narrator based on the facial expressions and gestures of the characters.

After analyzing the DNA of the people who scored the highest for these three parameters, the researchers found that there was a change in the oxytocin receptor gene known as the GG genotype in their gene chain.

The experiment showed that the participants in the viewing were immediately able to recognize those who would agree to help them in a difficult situation, and those who are not at all inclined to sympathy. It turns out that after observing a person for only 20 seconds, we are already quite able to decide whether we will trust him.

“People cannot see the change in the gene chain, which means that there is something that indicates a genetic abnormality of the stranger,” said University of Toronto Mississauga scientist Alexander Kogan, lead author of the study. - We found that people with a double portion of the GG gene in conversation are more likely to nod their heads, look into the eyes and smile, and take more open and inclusive postures. Such behavior is a signal of the person's kindness to the stranger."

The scientist highly appreciated the results of his own research, however, he separately emphasized that a kind and reliable person becomes due to the combination of many factors, both genetic and non-genetic. Each of them, like a thread, pulls a person in its direction, and the GG gene is just one of these threads.

Source: sciencedaily.com