Most of us like to think that we’re not judgemental people, we don’t make assumptions based on how people walk, talk or look. We’re thoughtful and treat people with kindness, or at least that’s what we like to think. But the reality is that we start reading people’s posture, gait, their clothes, and a whole bunch of other things way before they get a chance to open their mouth and introduce themselves.
Think about it, how many times have you seen someone walk into a café or just past you and immediately made assumptions about what kind of person they are (or seem to be) and decided how you feel about them? You’ve definitely had situations where you said something along the lines of “I don’t know them personally but they seem like a great person.” Or, alternatively, have uttered something like “I don’t know what it is about them but that person just rubs me the wrong way.” We have all seen that guy at the bar who strides in way too confidently and thought, “Ugh, what’s his issue.”
So yeah, we all judge and we don’t always make the best judgement. But what’s interesting is that there have been studies on how we judge people based on their gait and how fair that judgement is. Let’s explore that, shall we?
People Have Been Judging Walks For Nearly A Century
It’s not a new idea to judge a personality by the way a person walks. It’s not a new TikTok trend similar to what your Starbucks order says about your childhood trauma. Psychologists have been studying whether personality and gait are connected since the 1930s. Werner Wolff did a psychological study back in the day where they filmed people walking, without showing their faces, and then asked other participants to describe their personalities based on their walk.
The results were quite interesting because participants often made very similar assumptions. Multiple participants, for example, described the same walk as attention-seeking, vain, or trying hard to seem confident. Basically the science version of “That guy is trying too hard.”
The study, however, has its problems because the group of people was small and they all knew each other, so the results aren’t exactly unbiased. But they do point out at least one thing for sure, and that’s the fact that we instinctively treat gait as a personality clue.
The “Youthful Walk” Makes People Seem Happier And More Powerful
Modern studies use more advanced methods, including point-light displays, so a person becomes just a series of moving dots against a dark background. This removes any sort of bias like body shape, clothing, facial expression, or hair length. All that’s left is just movement. In these studies, participants mostly identified only two walking styles. One was perceived as more youthful, with a bouncier rhythm, faster steps, more hip movement, and more arm swinging. The other one looked older, with slower movements that looked more stiff, and the person was generally more forward-leaning.
The results of the study were very interesting. Turns out the gait didn’t have any connection to the actual age of the person. There were plenty of young people who had an older-looking walk, and older people who had a youthful walk. But curiously, the people who had a youthful walk were also seen as happier, more powerful or stronger by the participants, even after the real age of the walker was revealed. That tells us that a certain gait does have a lasting impression when it comes to assumed personality traits. So next time you walk into a room think about the fact that your walk might have an effect on how you’re going to be perceived.
But Most Personality Assumptions Based On Walking Are Wrong
This is where things go south for our little inner detectives.
Many people’s association of a certain walk with specific personality traits doesn’t automatically mean it’s true. Later British and Swiss studies have observed people associating a certain walk with a person being extroverted, trustworthy, adventurous, and warm, but that didn’t always correlate with the personality of the person whose walk they were judging. So just because multiple people make the same assumption about a person doesn’t make the assumption true. Someone might appear confident and decisive while walking, but in reality, they could simply be in a hurry and anxiously trying to remember whether they actually locked their door on the way out.
We Treat Walking Like A Personality Shortcut
Our brains love shortcuts. We feel a firm handshake and think “confident and competent”. We hear a posh English accent and think “smart and educated”. We might see someone walking with their head down and think “shy or sad”. But that’s just our brains trying to categorise people.
The problem with a person’s walk is that it’s not very reliable. Someone might walk slower because they’re tired or injured, thinking about a million things they have to do or just simply because they’re wearing uncomfortable shoes. On the other hand, someone might walk quickly and swing their arms a lot (the youthful walk), and you might assume they’re confident and decisive when they’re simply rushing to the nearest toilet.
A person’s walk gives us some information about them, but it’s not always what we think it is.
Your Walk May Reveal Vulnerability More Than Personality
By now, we likely agree that a person’s walk doesn’t reveal much about their personality, but some research suggests it can reveal something a bit unsettling: perceived vulnerability.
Studies suggest that a shorter stride, smaller arm movement, and a slower walk can be seen as vulnerable. What’s especially creepy is that studies involving people with high psychopathy scores show that they might be better at identifying people they view as victims. To them, this person seems weak and like they don’t want to be noticed, which makes them a perfect victim. This is deeply uncomfortable, but this doesn’t mean that our walk is responsible for making us a victim, just that certain psychopathic individuals see it as a vulnerability.
Can You Change The Message Your Walk Sends?
To an extent, we can, but not in a dramatic way. We can put on a more confident walk by adopting a longer stride and holding our heads high, walking with purpose. Women often do this instinctively when walking in an area they feel is unsafe.
But it’s a thin line between walking with a more confident stride and looking like you’re putting on a show of marching down the street to take over a small country. The goal is not to look like a character in a play, but instead just be aware of yourself and your surroundings, trying not to shrink into yourself and taking up space.
The Real Lesson Is Not To Judge Too Quickly
The biggest takeaway from this exercise is that your walk doesn’t actually reveal anything about your personality. Humans are more than their gait. We’re all complex individuals. Someone walking slow or fast, confidently or more reserved, can depend on their mood, health, the comfort level of the clothes they’re wearing, or whether they’re carrying a heavy bag or just have a lot of emotional baggage.
The lesson to learn here is that people make many quick judgments, but they don’t always have anything in common with objective truth. So if you’re wondering what your walk says about your personality—it’s a lot less than you think, but just enough for people to invent a whole life story for you in their head, even if it has nothing in common with reality.
