Forming First Impressions

Forming first impression is kind of an automatic process; an implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness. Even if we don’t want to judge someone that easily but this is how our mind works. First impression guides our actions in ways that meet our needs both concrete rewards and connectedness to people.

Our knowledge of people’s characteristics and the ways they are related to one another is a type of COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION. So, in this topic we are going to understand how we get these cognitive representations out our minds and we are also going to the processes of how we form first impressions.

RAW MATERIALS FOR FIRST IMPRESSIONS

• The way a person look and act are the raw materials for first impression. This focuses on the appearance and behavior of an individual that calls some representations to our mind and its related personal characteristics.

Physical appearance has big impacts on our impressions. Like for example, if we saw a person wearing eyeglasses, we will automatically think that he might be a smart person. Aside from that there is also a study conducted by Diane Berry and Leslie McArthur about baby-faced adult males and they found out that baby-faced adult males were viewed as naïve, honest and kind than those adult males with strong facial features. And because of this, baby-faced adults are less likely to be recommended or promoted to a job that requires mature characteristics like leadership ability. And that lead us to the impact of PHYSICAL APPEARANCE IN THE WORKPLACE.

• According to the study of Cash and Kilcullen, Attractive job applicants are more likely to be hired than the unattractive job applicants. It was then said that men who are 6’2 feet tall have a starting salary that is 10% higher than those men who are under 6 feet.

But physical beauty and attractiveness can be a blessing or not when it comes to women in the workplace. According to the study of Heilman and Stopeck, the participants of the study suspects that attractive women might be promoted or hired because of her appearance and not because of her abilities.

IMPRESSIONS FROM NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

Facial expression, eye contact and body language can give so much information to a person. When we are talking to someone, how can we say that they are listening? EYE CONTACT! People who look at us with dilated pupils is a sign of attention and interest. People who make frequent eye contact are perceived as honest, straightforward, friendly and likable but too much eye contact is unpleasant and often delivered anger or hostility while people who avoid eye contact are unfriendly, shifty, maybe shy or dishonest.

So, do you ever wonder how can we detect if someone is not telling the truth?

We are always misled by the face and words. It can be manipulated easily. To detect deception, the best cues are quivering or high-pitched tone voice or restless movement of hands and feet. But this is also difficult thing to do that’s why Lie Detector Test is done but according to the recent studies, lie detector test is not always accurate and can also be manipulated.

IMPRESSIONS FROM BEHAVIOR

Behavior is the most genuinely useful resource for developing an impression of another person.

INTERPRETING CUES

Cues are interpreted by our stored knowledge about people, behavior, traits and social situations. They have no meaning themselves. We should carefully understand the cues itself. Given a situation of someone whose eyebrows are wrinkled, is he angry or confused or not on mood? We have to decide which is the correct interpretation! To help us to make these decisions, there are two crucial kinds of stored knowledge, THE ASSOCIATION we have already learned and the thoughts that are currently in our minds.

THE ROLE OF ASSOCIATIONS IN INTERPRETATION

Association arises from two cognitive representations that have similarities in meaning. For an example if we think about “stealing” it is associated with the word “dishonesty”. Or even unrelated ideas can become associated if they are repeatedly thought about together.

Culture have different kinds of associations and therefore arrived with different interpretations for the same behavior. For example, your friend object about your plan on going to a party and you said you agree with him/her but you still went to the party anyway. Your friend might think that you are insincere but in Japan, agreeing with criticism is regarded as simple politeness.

When two cognitive representations are linked together, it is easier for us to remember the cues. When a cognitive representation comes to our mind, the linked representation will also come to our minds. (EX. Dalawang cans na pinagdugtong ng strings - concept)

THE ROLE OF ACCESSIBILITY IN INTERPRETATION

The principle of accessibility means that the knowledge that comes to our mind easily and rapidly has the most powerful influence on interpretation of behavior cues and other cues as well since it is the most accessible knowledge.