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First impression is definitely and really important because it’s hard for you to change it. Let’s look at an easy example. Suppose a man you did not meet before came to you with a pair of baggy, dirty jeans which stink and messed up hair. What would you think? Would you think that he’s a neat person, or that he’s a man lack of self-management?
Just like this simple example, we could easily learn that first impression decides almost everything about a person. If you look for the psychological reason why the first impression is important, you can find the effect called consistency fallacy as an answer. According to this theory, after making a decision, people have desire to maintain his first judgement though the situation has changed.
There is some effects that social psychologists suggests about first impression. These effects
psychologically explain why people think someone(something) based on his(its) first impression. Let’s find out those kinds of effects.
Why the momentary image shows its powerful ability? That’'s because the information you first got make a guide analyzing later information. Solomon Asch, the American social psychologist, call it ‘'the beginning of the first impression effect’'. This effect shows that the first impression mainly dominates one’'s thought, and other information weakens more and more as time goes by.
The second factor that affects building the first impression is called ‘halo effect of appearance’. Some experimental studies show that an attractive person is subject to given more advantageous valuation compared to a bad-looking person. Actually, lots of people consider relatively not good-looking person as less humble and more lavish person. This fact definitely reflects that appearance affects huge influence in judging a person. There is another ‘halo effect’ that has extended meaning of halo effect of appearance. This halo effect is evaluating people with overall images that his(her) behavior has, while ‘halo effect’ of appearance is to judge people just by his(her) appearance. This effect means evaluating a person’s behavior by the salient traits of his(her) character. The devoted and sincere person. Let’s think about the opposite situation. If someone is interviewing an employee and he conducts wrong, he will be in trouble changing his bad image to a better one in his workplace.
The biggest factor that decides the first impression is an external look. This is obvious truth because if you meet a person, you judge him firstly by appearance. So you can’t help it. The following factors are important elements that determine the initial impression.
1. look
It is the biggest part. If you have kind look, people would think you are a good person. On the contrary, if someone has a sinister look, people who first meet him would be afraid. It is unfair that you can’t decide your look you want to be. You can’t help it. Therefore, plastic surgeries is prevalent anywhere. Actually, it is one of the most controversial problems between people who agree with plastic surgery and who don’t agree with that in Korea.
2. dress
Being dressed up makes people judge you in a good way. It could make your first impression neat. But if you dress slovenly like spotted t-shirt with holes, messy shoes with bad smell you will also attract people’s attention, but not in a good way. They will think you are odd and abnormal person. So be well-dressed. I don’t mean that you should follow all the latest fad. What I mean is wear neat clothes. This neat clothes will give others a good impression about you.
Above things were external parts. But external look is not everything. You can make your great first impression by your own effort. Here’s are 5 tips that you can follow to make your fine initial impression.
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Your Face Tells Yourself |
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People see facial expression when they meet somebody for the first time, because they can read the person’s present situation by his facial expression. Someone who’s in trouble barely smiles. They do not use the whole muscles in their face. It seems that he’s in trouble or not comfortable with that situation. Always smile. Smile has powerful energy that makes other people happy. Always think that your smile lead your people. |
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Contact Eyes and Talk with Your Eyes |
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Eye contact tells that you are sincerely concentrating on your partner. As internet developed fastly, people are having less chances to talk in real life. We are used to see monitors or other things while we're on the chatting or phone. So we are accustomed not to contact the eyes when we talk. But it is very important to concentrate on the person you talk with. If you contact your eye on other then he(she) might feel being attended. |
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Your Body Also Talks |
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According to recent research, body language occupies 55% in communication. This result represents that nonverbal communication plays primary role in making images. To make positive body language, it is important to have affirmative mind in every situation. Try to look on the bright side, not the bad side. These are some tips that you can use with your body when you talk with someone. First, tare a person right in the face. Second, pull yourself up. Don’t fold your arms or crouch your shoulders. These kinds of actions could make your partner feel comfortable with your communication. |
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Your First Word Is Important |
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Don’t forget to always start a conversation with positive messages. Don’t ignore people in front of you. Don’t start a conversation in a businesslike manner because if you do so you seem to be a quite strict person. Start with a compliment like “You have a favorable first impression.” or “I really like your dress. It goes well with you.” or “I’m very pleased to see you.” are also good examples. These words will make your partner feel happy and consider you as a friendly person. Forget negative words. |
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Be Confident in Yourself |
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Being confident is more good to be seen than being timid. People would think you are the energetic person with bouncy personality if you feel confident in yourself no matter how much you lack skills or knowledge! This will attract people to you and the people will always follow you. So don’t cowardly step back and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. |
For example, if somebody in front of you seems to be a swindler, that affects your behavior. Whether he is a real swindler or not is not an important lout how he looks has more effect on your behavior. Similar to this, before somebody is actually identified as a ‘smart person’, he must have a first image of a ‘man of sincerity’, he should be appreciated as a ‘wise and intelligent person’, over all. However if first impression is like a ‘selfish person’, then he is considered as a ‘crafty and terrible one’.
In the case of president election, all the candidates adorn theirselves as presidents. They are competing for being suitable for president election. All the are presented as image of one country’ s president. For example president Lee Myung-bak an advertisement shaking hands with a common s the traditional market during the election. It was found out to be a wealthy woman who has made fortune however. This image pretends the harmonization of president, one of the highest level of the country with common people. It also substitutes information but it is actually difficult to deliver it. This is the reason why politicians are so making effort to have a nice image of themselves for short run advertisement.
However, one of the most serious problem of political advertisement is that it is too short to give detailed information, instead, political advertisements tend to emphasize the features that actually not needed for a politician. At times, appearance and gentle attitude considered more important than the candidate’s knowledge or experience. When image fills out the place which should be filled with information, it becomes impossible to discuss the issue. Every candidate makes their effort to improve their image, not to improve their pledges.
At a welcoming party for freshman, there was a friend who never refused drinking. Although, I didn’t know his name or where he came from, but I was impressed by his first impression.
After that party, everybody had called him the ‘god of drinking’. When he tried to go home early, other friends teased him not to go. He couldn’t change his image for the whole semester.
Like above example if anybody has others by his first impression then it is very difficult to change it in subsequent opportunity unless he gets a big chance to mould his image in a good one.
As the example above who harmed of the first impression, it is difficult to change one’s first impression. It is hard for you to break out fixed form and create a new from as long as there is not a big chance to change one’s image. This is because of durability, which is one of the First meeting between people characteristics of first impression. Scientists say that people’s brain is designed to memorize the first look of something for long. Moreover, some people insist that there need to be 40 hours of interview to change fixed initial impression. This shows the power of first impression.
First impression has a big effect in a job interview. There is no other situation that first impression has such a big effect than a job interview. Interviewers try hard to find interviewee’s ability out in a limited time. What they interested in is interviewer’s first impression, not a report card on one’s family or a resume. One research group said 8 out of 10 applicants responded that they consider the first impression as a most important one.
First impression exert vital effect on admission in universities. According to the findings on inquiry, interviewers positively evaluate students who are confident and bright.
The fact that the first impression is controlled by appearance was shown by many experiments. Albert Mehrabian, the psychology professor of University of California had an experiment about how one recognizes another when they meet for the first time. The result was like this. One’s first impression is formed by 55% of visual factor, 35% of voice, 7% of the content of talk. Visual element or soundless signal determines the first impression. clothes, facial expression, posture, body language and hair style, those are the soundless signals that you don’t even recognize. Images that these factors form makes people judge more things than talk.
We can’t refuse that we are free from impressions. Everyone evaluates only with first impression especially lack of information of someone. Even if it’s natural, it doesn’t mean that it’s right. Lookism is the thing caused when we weighs too much on impression. Lots of people believe that appearance is not just appearance.
They think appearance decides not only private life such as marriage, and love, but social life like getting jobs, promotions. It is the reason why they are more obsessed on their look. Extreme example showing this kind of obsession is plastic surgeries. From losing weight by exercising to spend money on plastic surgery, people make every effort they can make. What remains are severe physical side effect, or psychological obsession and lack of pride. Plastic surgery is also part of effort to have better first impression. Followings are the statistic show people’s recognition about plastic surgery.
Professor Ryu In-gyun, who leads team of the department of psychiatry of The Moreover, in this survey, addictiveness of the cosmetic surgery is proven. On contrast of 67.1% of people who have never had plastic surgery answered they wish to get some surgeries, 95.7%of the people who have had plastic surgery answered that they wish to get more surgeries. Moreover, to the question
asked would you take it if you have a chance to get whole body-cosmetic surgery, 23.5% of students who have never got cosmetic surgery and 35.7% of students who have got cosmetic surgery answered positive to the question.
As the statistic shows above, more than half of female college students have experience of getting plastic surgery, and 80% of female students wants to get cosmetic surgery. It’s not exaggerating to describe Korea ‘a country overwhelmed by Lookism.’
Is it possible to be satisfied by changing their appearance? As you keep making up yourself, it would be harder to divide made-up part of yourself and origin part. Although it is good to be satisfied with your brand new appearance, existential question still remains, “Who really are you?”
Having thought about it, the problem is caused from the atmosphere weights much on first impression. It’s because whole society rarely look into a person, and hardly trying to find inner beauty. Having difficulty to get a job, and hardly get recognized without fairly good look. It’s not
more than a small piece of whole problem.
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It Doesn’t Last Long |
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First impression is literally first impression. As time goes by, and as there are more information about a person, the impression we got at first changes. So you do not treat the person according to your own stereotype. |
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It Can Be a Prejudice |
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Everything has two sides. First impression can be advantageous, on the other hand, it can be harmful. Let’s suppose you saw a man with a sinister look. It is easy to think that he's a violent person because of his appearance. However, he could be a innocent and kind person. Likewise, initial impression could make people pass over one’s real personality. It takes much time to overcome misunderstood prejudice. |
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It's Just a Limited |
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Information of Someone When we meet kind looking person, everything he does seems to be kind behaviors. His goodness is just a limited information. He could be a very different person if he is drunken, but like said before, we cannot recognize his real personality with this limited information. First impression could not be more than pretended character. |
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First Impression Can Be Reversed |
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If you have got disappointed in person you liked, you would mistrust the person who gives good impression more than before. On the contrary of it, if the impression of someone is negative it could be changed after having some time with the person. This case can make the better relationship between them more than having good impression at a first sight. |
The answer is no. As mentioned above first impression no doubt important, it is not accurate. First impression is formed unconsciously. For these reason, first impression has power that much.
However, we should recognize the importance of first impression and also we should know that it can be wrong. Like the old saying “Don’t judge people by first impression,” the initial impression may not be accurate.
You can easily know it’s difficult to form another person’s image with the process of formation of image. First impression does not form with objectivity. First received information(appearance) affects whole imprint and the later received information has less effects on the impression. Therefore, the process of formation of image can be distorted by various situations.
There is no way to judge whether one’s image is true or not. One feature of a person can form various impression. Let’s suppose there is a colleague who loves drinking. Some would think he’s outgoing and social, and some would think he’s undignified. However, without enough information, no one will be sure about him. In short, first impression is not trustworthy.
The things that you recognize are very piecemeal. They are just the outlines of feeling that you got from other people’s clothes or behaviors. So it does not represents the whole personality of some.
Each person has his own frame. So the minimize or maximize the information he receives. Also he does not even accept the information that doesn’t fit to his own frame. This frame is the stereotype and it can be the disturbing factor. If you have prejudice that people using dialect are ignorant, you can be mistaken to form his impression with good point of view no matter how the person is good! Stereotype attitude will not disappear easily, and it will affect in forming first impression, and therefore, first impression formed by stereotype cannot be accurate.
As first impression is not accurate, we need to make it sure if the impression is well-considered. Few minutes can’t tell you everything. You ought to think twice even if their initial impression was not good.
At the beginning of the article, There are examples of advertising for president election, welcoming party for a freshman and, the interview. First impression is important, but is not the sole factor. presidential candidate should consider not only the favorable impression, but persuading them with the logics. At the example of the friend who drinks well, It is needed to make effort to see his good points instead of disturbing him by exaggerating his drink-liking feature. In the case of interview, you should evaluate interviewee carefully. After then, you will see his true character.
Therefore, we should remind that someone’s first impression can be inaccurate. So you shouldn’t get caught by the preconception. It is recommended to think twice even if you met the person
who has terrible ‘first impression’.
First impression better to be considered, but not to be fully believed. There are many people who are truly pretty, but their personal appearance is chilly.
Especially, when people formed their relationship through the blind meeting, the initial impression tip the balance. It is so frustrating to see person who was failed to make a favorable impression because his first impression was chilly. It is so difficult to become intimate with someone who has chilly first impression. Particularly, female members said that “The marriage will be horrible if my husband’s personal appearance is cold.”
Kim Pil-ji (Editor-in-Chief)
pilji714@ssu.ac.kr
Yu Ji-young (ST Cub-Reporter)
oneway1012@ssu.ac.kr
