Psychology suggests the person nodding along in every meeting isn't just agreeing to move things along; a 2018 study found nodding makes someone seem markedly more likeable and approachable

You know that one person on every Zoom call who just nods while everyone else stares blankly at their camera? There might be a real psychological reason people warm up to them. According to the study, ‘Effects of Head Nodding and Shaking Motions on Perceptions of Likeability and Approachability,’ published in the journal Perception by researchers Takayuki Osugi and Jun I. Kawahara, a simple nod makes computer-generated figures appear significantly more likeable and approachable than the same figures shaking their heads or staying still.

Why did the researchers even start looking at head motion
The same study also noted that earlier research has shown that a bowing motion in computer-generated female figures makes them appear more attractive. This raised the question: if bowing can affect how attractive someone looks, could nodding or shaking your head, gestures we already use to signal agreement or disagreement, affect how likeable or approachable someone seems? The study tested that idea.

What the researchers actually did
The setup was simpler than you would think. Osugi and Kawahara presented 49 Japanese men and women aged 18 or older with short video clips of computer-generated figures, according to a press release from Hokkaido University, one of the institutions behind the research. Some clips showed the figure nodding. In others, it shook its head. In a third set, it stayed still. Then the viewers rated each figure on three things: how attractive it appeared, how likeable it appeared, and how approachable it appeared. The researchers say the setup was meant to isolate the effect of subtle motion itself, rather than facial appearance.

The results: nodding wins, shaking barely registers
The nodding figures scored about 30 percent higher in likability and about 40 percent higher in approachability than the shaking or motionless versions, according to the Hokkaido University release. Head shaking did not much affect ratings one way or the other. The original study says that this increase in likability was mainly due to personality impressions, not any change in how attractive the figure was. Nodding didn’t make anyone look better; it made them seem warmer and easier to connect with.

Why does a small head movement carry weight
This lines up with how nods work in everyday life. The original study notes that nodding and shaking are common as communicative signals, roughly standing for approval and disapproval. The Hokkaido University release adds that in many countries, nodding specifically reads as approval while shaking reads as denial. So when we see someone nodding, our brains may be silently putting them in the box labelled “friendly and receptive” without us ever consciously deciding to do so.

A few caveats worth keeping in mind
This is where it helps to slow down, since easy to take a careful, narrow lab study and stretch it into a sweeping life hack. The figures here were computer-generated animated faces, not real people on a webcam during a Tuesday meeting, and all 49 participants were adults from Japan, which is a fairly small, culturally specific sample. Nodding does not necessarily mean the same thing either. In some cultures, it can mean something more similar to the opposite of agreement.

This was pointed out directly by the lead researcher of the study. Caution is needed in generalizing the results because computer-generated female faces were used to manipulate the head motions, Kawahara said. Further work involving male figures, real human faces, and participants from different cultural backgrounds is needed before applying the findings to real-world situations. In short, this is an encouraging early sign, not a universal rule for how people read one another.

Does this hold up in real workplace settings?
There is a broadly similar line of evidence from separate research on actual human behavior, though it is not measuring exactly the same thing. A meta-analysis titled ‘Speaking without words: A meta-analysis of over 70 years of research on the power of nonverbal cues in job interviews,’ published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior that pooled data from 63 studies and nearly 4,900 participants across more than 70 years of research found that head movement was one of the strongest nonverbal indicators of how well job candidates were rated in interviews, right up there with eye contact and professional appearance. That analysis wasn't about nodding in particular, and it can't prove that head movement causes better impressions rather than just being a side effect of them. But it does suggest that in real, high-stakes situations, not just in a lab with a bunch of animated avatars, how people move their heads when they’re really listening matters.

The takeaway for your next meeting
None of this means you should nod like a bobblehead through every status update to win people over; that would probably read as exactly as odd as it sounds. But the research provides a gentle nudge: small, natural cues, such as nodding when you’re genuinely engaged, may be quietly influencing how approachable and likeable you come across.

In a world of video calls, first dates and job interviews, where people are constantly, half-consciously reading body language, that’s a low-effort thing to be a little more intentional about. Just be real; people tend to notice the difference between an engaged nod and a performative one.