A second and a half is not a particularly long time, in everyday life it passes in the blink of an eye. But when it comes to social interactions, a second and a half becomes a very long time and can make a substantial difference.
In fact, it is likely that on more than one occasion this second and a half has betrayed you. For example, when your best friend told you he was getting married and, instead of congratulating him, it took you longer than usual to respond.
We all know what it means to say nothing for a second and a half, and it's almost never good. Those little fraction-of-a-second pauses can reveal what we really think, without us having to say it. Of course, they can also profoundly affect our interpersonal relationships because the other person perceives our surprise or rejection. And the worst part is that this effect cannot be eliminated.
Mental agility is the basis of charisma
Psychologists from the University of Queensland are convinced that one of the secrets of charismatic people is precisely to react fast enough in social contexts, not to remain silent or paralyzed during this second and a half of time.
In a recent study, these psychologists asked a series of relatively simple general-knowledge questions to a group of volunteers, and measured the time it took them to answer. The fastest people responded in 400 milliseconds, the slowest took twice as long.
Thereafter, the psychologists asked the friends of each of the participants to rate their charisma. So they found that the people who answered questions the fastest were also considered the most charismatic.
Without a doubt, answering questions quickly tells us that we are able to analyze our memory fairly quickly, join the dots and draw conclusions that allow us to answer correctly. This ability is not only useful for solving problems that require mental agility but also in everyday life, especially in social relationships, where it is often necessary to resort to ingenuity to give quick answers to make a good impression or avoid a problem of proportions. major.
The first thing that crosses your mind is never right
The truth is that the speed with which we react in social situations is a determining factor in different contexts and according to the type of interaction. For example, stopping to think for a second and a half when your partner asks you if you love her can lead to an argument or can generate a lot of insecurity in the other person. There are situations where it is assumed that we have to respond quickly without thinking too much.
Of course, you can't sacrifice accuracy for speed. In fact, charismatic people don't, they don't say the first thing that comes to their mind, but they are able to find the right answer in no time. In practice, these people can evaluate different answers and find the most suitable in a few milliseconds, a time that makes a substantial difference in interpersonal relationships.
This means that if you want to become charismatic, a good place to start is to improve your mental agility. To do this, it is enough that you continually propose new intellectual challenges, that you question everything, especially the things you have always taken for granted, and that you have the courage to open your mind to discover new, less traditional and more ingenious answers.
