Warmth and Competence

If you want someone to trust you, carrying the traits of warmth and competence can go a long way. The book “ The Human Brand “ talked about this quite a bit, so I thought I’d share some of what they said.

First is the overview:

A person who demonstrates both warmth and competence inspires feelings of trust and admiration within us, motivating us to seek a continuing relationship with that person.

They point out that the “and” is very important in this context. If you only exude warmth or competence, it’ll reflect poorly on you:

One who displays competence in the absence of warmth, however, tends to leave us feeling envious and suspicious, while someone we perceive as warm but not competent stimulates feelings of pity and sympathy. A person who exhibits low levels of both warmth and competence often provokes feelings of contempt and disgust.

So what do those traits look like?

Warmth is judged by assessing whether one is kind, friendly, and good-natured; whether one appears sincere, honest, moral, and trustworthy; and whether one possesses an accommodating orientation and is perceived as helpful, tolerant, fair, generous, and understanding.

Competence is judged by assessing whether one possesses special resources, skills, creativity, or intelligence that…