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There are few things more agonising than the aftermath of a great first date when you don't know he feels.

Well, now you can forget staring at your phone and analysing it with your friends. It seems we should trust our gut instinct as it's usually right, say psychologists.

Boffins in America have found that confidence makes all the difference when it comes to knowing how a situation went.

They sent 280 students on five-minute dates and asked them to rate how it went - and also asked them how confident they were in their estimation of how their partner sees them.

"In the past, researchers hadn't asked whether you know when you're accurate in first impressions, nor your degree of confidence," explains psychologist Erika N. Carlson.

"We found that people who were poor at making good meta-impressions were less confident than people who made accurate ones. So, after making a first impression, if you're confident in your judgment, you're likely to be right."


There's even a word for knowing when you've made a good impression - calibration. Apparently it means being confident when you're right and uncertain when you're wrong. Non well-calibrated people are confident when they're wrong and uncertain when they're right.

Researchers compare calibration to having an internal gauge.

"You think, 'This is the impression I think I made.' And the internal gauge tells you to go ahead with that impression, you're probably right," she says. "Or, gather more information, you might be wrong. So, well-calibrated people have a good internal gauge."

"You might have thought that the date you went on went well and she liked you, but it went wrong in the date's eyes and she doesn't like you. Your next move could be embarrassing and painful," she says

Further videotaped research is planned to explore which factors affect calibration, such as verbal or non-verbal clues, which might reveal who formed accurate judgements and who did not and whether other factors, such as how close participants sit next to one other, makes a difference.

Hmm, we wonder how much these researchers are being paid and if there are any jobs going...

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