How to make a good first impression: bowing wins people over in Japan, not in the US

How to make a good first impression also depends on where you are. That is what a study published on 7 August 2026 in Japanese Psychological Research by Takayuki Osugi, of Yamagata University, and Jun I. Kawahara, of Hokkaido University, shows: the same greeting gesture, the bow, makes a person more attractive in the eyes of people who grew up in Japan, while leaving people living in the United States almost indifferent.

The starting point is a practical one. In Japan, bowing is the everyday greeting and, as the same authors note in an earlier paper, it is taught at school and in training for new employees, precisely because it is believed to weigh heavily on first impressions. With the number of foreign visitors to the country rising, however, bows are increasingly exchanged between people of different appearance. Hence the question: does the effect work for everyone, and for whoever is watching?

What the researchers had already found

The so-called bowing effect is not new. It is a line of research the same two authors have pursued for more than ten years, using three-dimensional computer-generated human figures: avatars identical in every way except for their movement.

The main milestones, according to the publications:

• 2015: Attention, Perception & Psychophysics publishes «Effects of bowing on perception of attractiveness», which studies how bowing changes judgements of appearance;
• 2024: in the Japanese Journal of Psychology (volume 95), a replication run online, including with workers recruited on crowdsourcing platforms, confirms that bowing models look more attractive than those standing still, and that the time spent in the bent position also counts;
• 2026: the new study extends the test to four types of appearance (East Asian, European, South Asian and African) and to two populations of observers, Japanese and American, across four experiments.

The method is simple to describe: viewers are shown short animations of the same avatar either standing still or bowing, and asked to rate its attractiveness. Any difference in the rating can be attributed to the gesture, because the face does not change.

The result: the gesture appeals to those who know it

In the first two experiments, Japanese participants perceived the bowing effect whatever the model's appearance: European, African or South Asian, the bowing figure looked more attractive than the motionless one. US participants, watching the same videos, showed minimal or no effect, for every type of model.

The later experiments ruled out the most obvious explanation, namely that the Americans were paying less attention. The researchers independently varied the physical attractiveness of the faces: both groups told the more attractive faces from the less attractive ones in the same way. The difference concerned only the response to the movement.

The authors' conclusion is cautious: bowing gestures are interpreted consistently within each cultural population, regardless of the appearance of the person performing them. In other words, who bows matters less than who is watching.

What the study says, and what it does not

It is worth keeping data and interpretation apart. The study measures one thing only: the attractiveness rating given to a digital avatar in an online experiment. It does not measure trust, perceived competence or the success of a negotiation, and an avatar has no voice, no spontaneous gaze and none of the countless nuances of a face-to-face meeting.

That said, the result suggests a useful principle for anyone introducing themselves to someone for the first time: a gesture has no value in itself, it acquires meaning within a shared code. The same movement that adds elegance and respect in one context goes unnoticed in another or, at worst, causes embarrassment.

How to make a good first impression with body language

For anyone who works with clients, partners or colleagues from other countries, the study indicates that a greeting is already communication, before any words are spoken. A few practical points follow naturally:

• find out the usual greeting of the person you are meeting, instead of taking your own for granted;
• watch the other person's first gesture and match it, with restraint and without caricature;
• mind your posture in the first few seconds, because your body speaks as you approach, not only once you arrive;
• give the gesture time: research on bowing indicates that the duration of the movement also counts in the observer's judgement.

None of these rules replaces authenticity. A greeting adapted to the context works when it stays consistent with the rest of the person: the gaze, the tone of voice, the way of occupying space.

The greeting as a first message

In Italy the usual greeting at business meetings is a handshake, but meetings are increasingly international, both in person and on video. Knowing that the value of a gesture depends on the eyes of whoever receives it helps you prepare better, without stiffening up and without improvising.

CG Imagine's Com-On training works on exactly this hidden language: gestures, expressions, posture and tone of voice, so you can choose consciously how to greet, introduce yourself and be remembered. Like the bow in the study, your first gesture says something too: it should say what you want it to, to the person in front of you.

Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash