I once read a quote that said, “Do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat.” And I can’t emphasize it enough.

We are a society quick to judge the success of others based on  external appearances. But I can’t think of a more foolish metric to  utilize.

Some psychologists argue this is natural for humans. “Our unconscious mind starts from  whatever objective data is available to us—usually spotty—and helps to  shape and construct the more complete picture we consciously perceive.”

I suppose this makes sense to me. But here’s the problem:

We’re terrible at it! Like really, really bad.

In fact, in one study,  scientists asked students at a Chinese university to look at selfies  and evaluate the personalities of the people pictured in five key  personality characteristics. The students were wrong 80% of the time!

80% of the time they were unable to determine the personality or character of a person based solely on appearance.