Have you ever felt anxious about meeting new people and worried about how you come across to them? Well, it turns out that the feeling is mutual! According to a recent study led by Erica J. Boothby and published in Psychological Science, people tend to like us more in first encounters than we think.

We often spend a lot of time worrying about what others think of us, constructing a metaperception of ourselves based on how we think we come off. Interestingly, the study reveals a “liking gap” between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us in initial meetings.

The study conducted by Boothby and her team involved various experiments to explore this liking gap. In one experiment, participants were paired up and engaged in conversations, after which they rated how much they liked the other person and how much they thought the other person liked them. The results consistently showed that people underestimated how much others liked them after just a brief interaction.

Further experiments delved into the reasons behind this liking gap, showing that participants had more negative thoughts about how others viewed them compared to how they viewed others. The gap persisted across conversations of varying lengths and even in real-world settings, indicating the importance of first impressions in forming relationships.

Overall, the research highlights the tendency for people to underestimate how much others like them in initial interactions. So, the next time you meet someone new, remember that they may be just as concerned about what you think of them as you are about what they think of you. It’s a reminder that we’re all a bit self-conscious in social situations, but ultimately, we’re probably liked more than we realize.