First Impressions

I read/saw a psychology study once which discussed the role of first impressions on interview situations. The study basically showed that within the first few seconds of the candidate entering the interview room, the interviewer already had developed an impression of the candidate. I don't remember for sure what the result was with regards to the interviewers impression of the candidate at the end of the interview, but that is not important here. The reason I brough this up is because, it made me realize the importance of first impressions both in professional and personal situations.

This all ties in with each persons own expectations. When one meet someone new, one immediately builds a mental image of this person in our head. And the rest of the time that we spend interacting with this person, we're always trying to either fit the externally perceivable characteristics of this person into our mental image or hopefully in more cases than the latter, adjusting our mental image of the person. This need not even be a person, the same could even apply to an object.

What that leads to though is that very often first impressions and the mental image that we may construct of a person or an object may not be what the person or the object really is. And I guess that is really the key point I wanted to point out. I guess I can actually think of instances in which I have been a victim of my own mental imagesof other people. I can remember atleast two if not more instances of when I saw some of the people who were to be my classmates in grad school, I created a mental image of them which was not even close to what those people turned out to be. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pierce the veil of my own creation to take the time to get to know these people, who thereafter became some of my best friends. But then there may be contless other cases in which I may not have been so fortunate.

I wonder how many interactions between people have fallen victim to first impressions where people do not take the time to get to know an individual. Instead of taking their own mental image as a raw heap of clay which needs to be scuplted into form using the interactions with a person, they cast their mental image in concrete based on an inadequate and superficial first impression.

As it is in most such cases, this facet of human behavior much like any other has no simple explanation, no simple solution. The awareness that things may not always be what they seem is critical. So first impressions count, but refining those first impressions and moulding them to take a more accurate form is probably more important.