Not everyone has a home office but yet there’s something that still seems a little unserious. And we found that the living room and novelty backgrounds were the worst,” he said.Īnalyzing the findings, he said: “I think people know that’s how other people work. “We tested over 160 people and we found that the background of plants and bookcases led to higher trust and competency responses. Paddy Ross, research lead and associate professor of psychology at Durham University, told CNN Thursday that he was “surprised with how robust” the responses were.
“Faces presented on the plants and bookcase background were consistently rated as the most trustworthy and most competent, contrasting the home and novelty backgrounds which received lower trustworthiness and competence ratings,” the authors of the study said. Stop making employees turn on webcams during meetingsĪ cohort of 167 participants, aged between 19 and 68, were then asked to complete an online questionnaire about how trustworthy and how competent the people in each image appeared to be.
