Estimating first impression accuracy and accuracy awareness among laypeople and scientific experts

First impressions can influence various consequential decisions, yet their accuracy remains poorly understood due to mixed evidence, difficulties in integrating results across heterogeneous study designs, and widespread methodological limitations. Here, we present a large-scale, registered test of first impression accuracy. We created new stimulus database of 214 Dutch adults whose scores on various trait measures will serve as our accuracy criteria. Perceivers (n ≈ 550 Dutch adults) will provide approximately 175,000 judgments of ten commonly studied traits (HEXACO personality dimensions, intelligence, trustworthiness, dominance, and social status) based on five information types (neutral and smiling facial photographs, full-body photographs, audio and video clips). Next to estimating first impression accuracy across different traits and information sources, we will examine how well perceivers can predict their own first impression accuracy, and how well first impression researchers’ (n ≈ 222) beliefs about accuracy map onto the accuracy rates observed in our study.