The psychology of first impressions: Explore how we form quick judgements and the science behind them
Riley-Belle Kinard, Visual Arts Editor
I walk into a coffee shop, and I am instantly hit with 1,000 different thoughts going off in my head. Oh, their outfit is so cute. They probably have a lot of friends. Can they be trusted? What if they are all just being fake? Look at their outfits, they all probably are rich. Will they talk about me once I leave?
As I walk up to the table where I spotted my friend sitting with her sorority sisters, I remind myself, I only have one chance. I can’t mess this up.
That is what you may find yourself saying after meeting someone for the first time. You only have one time to make a good first impression. Every day we are constantly interacting and meeting with different people. You never know when you are only going to have that one chance for a good first impression.
Psychology professor, Jayma Goodwin said, “We were created as limited beings. So, we have limited time and space cognitive ability. We are that way because God created us with a limited nature and because of sin. In our limitedness, we must use quick judgements, and we will never have the full picture.”
When studying first impressions, there are three ways that they are formed. There is the primacy effect, halo effect and facial features.
The primacy effect explains that typically, people remember the initial information rather than things that they thought or heard later on when meeting you. When engaging with someone, you are most aware at the beginning. You are taking in what they are saying, what they look like and non-verbal cues.
An article from Very Well Mind states, “Researchers found that first impressions made based on briefly looking at a photograph of a stranger affected judgments when participants met the same stranger face-to-face a month later.”
For example, let’s act like we live under a rock and have never seen Taylor Swift. One day, you see a picture of her, and you immediately form many impressions and judgements about her. A month later, you just so happen to meet Taylor Swift at your local grocery store. Shocker, I know, but just imagine. When you meet her for the first time, it is proven that you would have the same impression of her that you had when you saw her picture a month prior to now.
The halo effect is when you take one trait of a person and focus on that one trait to make an overall judgement or conception of them. Whether that be the way the dress, the way that they talk, how nice they were, etc. we take one trait and use that to form an opinion of the person. Although that doesn’t sound quite fair, we have found ourselves affected by the halo effect before. This explains the famous saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Have you ever had a moment when you have had to remind yourself or a friend to “fix your face?” Believe it or not, your facial features can be how someone determines if you had a good first impression or not. For people who don’t tend to have a happy resting face, this could make your first impression prone to error.
You can make your first impression of someone in the blink of an eye . . . No, seriously.
According to Psychology Today, “. . . it only takes a tenth of a second to form a judgment about another person’s character, even from a still photograph.” That’s how long the average blink is.
Jenna Lyda, sophomore Psychology major at North Greenville University believes that our facial features have the biggest effect on someone’s first impression of us because before you meet someone, you already know what they look like before they have the chance to speak. We often make assumptions of how they may act based on the facial expressions that they make.
Lyda said, “Our brain registers how someone reacts to us, and if they react negatively or you see them make a negative expression, your brain is put off.”
People like face-to-face interactions so that we can see how people are responding to what we are saying. It is difficult for people to hide their facial expressions, so a first impression could be judged completely by the faces we make.
Let’s just hope that you are in a good mood when meeting someone for the first time. Did you know that your mood can affect your impression of someone else?
In an article that Science Direct published, it states, “Based on research on impression formation and recent work on affect and social cognition, this experiment predicted and found that positive mood increased, and negative mood eliminated the primacy effect.”
If you are in a bad mood, your first impression of someone else most likely won’t be positive. Maybe you are hungry or deprived of sleep. The same goes for the person on the other side of the conversation. You never know what has happened prior to meeting someone. They could have just received bad news. Because of the negativity effect in psychology, if you are looking for negative traits from other people, you are going to find them. None of us are perfect. But, if you are in a good mood, you are going to see good traits show through in other people.
The 7/11 rule is important to consider when meeting someone for the first time. It will encourage you to give the best first impression. It is shown that in the first seven seconds of meeting someone, they will form 11 impressions of you. For example, some of the first things that people notice are the clothes that you are wearing, eye contact, your level of confidence and how friendly you are.
Goodwin explained that the reason we are known to make quick first impressions is because of risk attempt.
She said, “We have to determine, is the person safe or not? Can we continue on with this or not?”
There aren’t many things that you can do in only seven seconds, but many short ads that will interrupt your scrolling last seven seconds.
Did you know that in that time, you can form up to 11 different impressions of what you are watching? You don’t have long to make a memorable first impression. Maintain eye contact so they know that you are listening. Smile and ask questions. Most importantly, just be yourself. Your first impression should be genuine because it will last. You don’t want people to like the fake version of you.
After reading this, you may find yourself thinking of the times that you may have made a bad first impression or you were too quick to judge someone when you first met them. While you can overcome a bad impression, it takes time. A study that Harvard conducted shows that it can take up to eight subsequent positive encounters to reverse a negative opinion.
Next time you meet someone for the first time, just remember you have one opportunity to make a memorable first impression. Will you choose to smile, engage and be friendly, or will you let your face tell them all they need to know?
Photo courtesy of Amy Hirschi on Unsplash
