First names and first impressions: A fragile relationship

Abstract

Given only first names, reliable differences are found in guesses about personal characteristics. It was hypothesized that this finding is strongly dependent on the lack of interference from competing information. Therefore such first-name effects should be fragile in that, if a subject is exposed to additional and relevant material, the differential effect of a first name would be mitigated. This interpretation was tested by exposing one group of subjects to a set of good and bad male first names, while a second group encountered the same names accompanied by photographs. The results showed that there was a replication of previously reported differences between these good and bad names if no photograph was present, but the addition of the photograph blocked the differential effect of first names. The results paralleled a similar finding with female first names. Overall, the results argue against too much emphasis on the possible deleterious effects of a particular first name.