Interpersonal perception is an area of research in social psychology which examines the beliefs that interacting people have about each other. This area differs from social cognition and person perception by being interpersonal rather than intrapersonal, and thus requiring the interaction of at least two actual people. People more accurately perceive extraversion and conscientiousness in strangers than they do the other personality domains. A 5-second interaction tells you as much as 15 minutes on these domains, and video tells you more than audio alone.
Viewing peoples’ personal websites or ‘online profiles’ (as on Facebook or a dating website) can make people as knowledgeable about their conscientiousness and open-mindedness as their long-term friends. The question of whether social-networking sites lead to accurate first-impressions has inspired Sam Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin and David Evans formerly of Classmates.com to launch an ambitious project to measure the accuracy of first-impressions worldwide (YouJustGetMe.com).
The Daily Omnivore 
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