Nalini Ambady

We observe a small amount of information and then construct a much larger story.

Psychologist Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal conducted a major meta-analysis in nineteen ninety-two examining what they called thin slices of expressive behavior.

They analyzed thirty-eight different results involving predictions from brief observations of behavior.

Across those studies, the overall effect size for prediction accuracy was reported as R equals point three nine.

Uh, this is a great one actually.

The researcher, Nalini Ambady, took ten-second clips of different teachers and combined them into th- into one 30-second clip, and asked students, uh, to rate them on things like how accepting, competent, and confident the teachers were.

They then compared this to the end-of-year student evaluations from that class.

So it's like gut instinct versus what a longer format review would look like.