Chengyu

瞎子摸象 (xiā zi mō xiàng)

Characters

瞎 xiā: Blind 

子 zi: Small person

摸 mō: Touch

象 xiàng: Elephant

Story

Once upon a time, an Indian king had an elephant brought to his palace.  Five blind men were excited about the news for they have never seen an elephant.  Thus, they paid the king a visit.  The king was delighted by their visit and immediately allowed them to examine his elephant.

Blind man 1 touched the trunk and assumed an elephant resembled a large snake.  Blind man 2 touched its ear and thought it was like a fan.  Blind man 3 hugged its leg and guessed it was similar to a tree trunk.  Blind man 4 patted its side and assumed it felt like a wall.  Finally, blind man 5 grabbed the tail and described it as a rope.  

The king roared in laughter.

Lesson

The blind men each only examined a small part of the elephant so they failed to describe it.  Conversely, they must either examine the whole elephant individually or work together to get an accurate picture.  Hence, 瞎子摸象 (xiā zi mō xiàng) or blind person touch elephant means jumping to conclusions without knowing the whole situation.  瞎子摸象 (xiā zi mō xiàng) can also be used to describe those who take a simplistic one-sided approach to problems.  Thus, people commonly commit 瞎子摸象 (xiā zi mō xiàng) on first impressions.

Research

A first impression is an event where people evaluate each other upon meeting.  It can be done with a short conversation or with just a glance as seen in love at first sight.  Although first impressions are formed in mere seconds, they can have lasting effects in contexts ranging from professional work to dating (1).  Now, the observer’s impression accuracy depends on factors such as the target’s emotion and physical appearance.

First, emotions are judged differently.  That is, impression accuracy increases as more time is given to judge positive, but not negative emotions.  In one study for example, accuracy was the same whether participants were given five seconds or five minutes to judge a videotaped interaction for negative affect (2). That is, behaviours associated with negative affect (eg. reserved, unexpressive, and showing signs of tension) were recognized immediately.  Another study showed that subliminally presented faces expressing negative, but not positive emotions increased skin conductance – a consequence of sweating that is used to measure emotional responses (3).  Moreover, it may be useful to recognize negative emotions immediately since a threatening face can be a sign of danger (4).

Second, physical appearance provides hints to a person’s character without the need for speech or movement.  That is, facial expression, physical features, posture, and clothes may be judged during first impressions.  For instance, observers who saw pictures of people in a standing pose were able to judge accurately the target’s levels of extraversion, self-esteem, and even religiosity (5).  In fact, people may sometimes rely too much on looks.  For example, participants given contradictory information beforehand may still rely on physical appearance to judge others’ personality traits (6).  Further, voting results can even be predicted from first impressions of a political candidate’s facial features (7).  Indeed, whether a candidate wear glasses or is balding can matter more to voters than the economy and national security.

Although people can judge first impressions accurately based on emotions and physical appearance, there is one caveat.  People tend to feel more confident about their impressions when given more time even if they are wrong (8).  This is concerning because people are usually bad at detecting lies or feigned emotions (9).  Hence, this is why one needs to be cautious of not committing 瞎子摸象 (xiā zi mō xiàng). 

1. Wood, T.J. (August 2014). “Exploring the