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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8146679" data-attributes="member: 82106">Interesting thesis, but I would need data (and the 'evo devo' part, unprovable storytelling but that's just one of my annoyances <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). While it is dangerous to rely too much on 'Googling' for answers to profound questions, you might find the results of a search on "are first impressions accurate" to be interesing <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=how+accurate+are+first+impressions&ia=web" target="_blank">how accurate are first impressions at DuckDuckGo</a> and my impression of what came up is "its more complicated than that." (figures). So keep that in mind. In fact this kinda makes sense, since first impressions are probably under very heavy selection pressure. More subtly, honesty is an evolutionarily overall favorable trait. This is why humans have bare faces and visible sclera of the eye, nobody can suppress 'tells' when they try to lie, our emotions come to the surface easily etc. It is advantageous to a specific individual to be able to prevaricate, but for the WHOLE GROUP this is disastrous. It utterly undermines the value of communications and it is unlikely that language would even have arisen under conditions of rampant lying (and getting away with it at least). So all humans prevaricate, and all other humans catch them most of the time. The same is true for other basic human personality traits, we signal them, and others pick them up. This forms the basis for first impressions, which work kinda well (sort of). I agree though, we should treat them with great care, and our social conditioning is a huge problem here. Anyway... just had to say that.My own input here is just to say that I don't think this process can yield much. We know so little about the fictional world. We know little about the detailed social history of this world, of the customs and norms, of the detailed history, or even basic facts like social class and ethnic heritage, of most of the NPCs in it that we cannot even do something equivalent to a first impression, let alone some sort of actual analysis. All that is left is either some very dubious and essentially worthless assessment, like what you are doing, or to JUST MAKE IT UP. I assert that the latter is what people are doing. EVEN if they do the former, they are doing the latter, because the former is basically impossible and is just a proxy for doing the latter unconsciously. I say this for all the same reasons that you say you doubt first impressions, essentially.I think my thesis is simpler. People pick for entirely other reasons, which I like to generously label "dramatic effect", although I admit there are probably potentially many others. I'm quite sure people THINK they are doing some sort of "logical unbiased neutral" thing. IMHO and in my studies of how humans actually think (I mean physically and how the process works) that is literally impossible.</blockquote>

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