All of us have taken an instant dislike to someone, and then felt guilty about being too judgmental. But now it seems we should place more trust in our first impressions. Most people can accurately judge a total stranger following a short meeting, according to scientists. And in general, the more confident the people are, the more likely they are to be correct in their assumptions. Jeremy Biesanz, who led a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia, said: "Many important decisions are made after very brief encounters -- which employee to hire, which person to date, which student to accept". Although our first impressions are generally accurate, it is necessary for us to recognize where they may be not good enough. The researchers arranged for two groups of more than 100 people to meet in a meeting. Much like speed-dating, the volunteers spoke to everyone in their group for three minutes each. At the end of each three-minute chat, they were asked to rate each other's personalities, and how well they thought their impressions "would  _ someone who knows this person very well". To find out what the person was "really" like, the scientists had his friends and family fill out his personality reports. Generally speaking, the more confident the volunteers felt in accurately rating another's personality, the closer their ratings were to those of the other person's friends and family, the researchers said. However, the participants with the highest accuracy were those who rated themselves moderately accurate -- those highly confident of their judgment were less successful. The scientists concluded that, although we know people are different from each other, a good judge of character knows that in many ways people are mostly alike. For example, almost everyone would prefer being kind to being unfriendly. Therefore, while first impressions can be generally accurate, they are not conclusive in working out whether somebody really is "better" than someone else. The volunteers joined a meeting which was   _  .
interesting complex serious brief