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Clinging to First Impressions Essay

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Section 1 The concept I am going to discuss is clinging to first impressions. Clinging to first impressions means that when we originally meet someone, we decide what they are like from that one time of meeting them. A first impression is what causes someone to like or not like someone depending on the kind of person they get along with. Interplay states, “If our impressions are accurate, they can be useful ways of deciding how to respond best to people in the future (124).” Carlin Flora compares a first impression to a Polaroid picture of someone that never fades. This analogy is a metaphor to describe how a first impression sticks with someone. They never go away and stay with someone to be judged every time you see them after that. …show more content…

Interplay states that confirmation bias is what people use when they try to find proof of the impression they develop. People often times ask people and do things with them that will prove their opinion so that others can see that they are right. After someone is hired you often see supervisors observe their employees work to see if they are doing their job right to see if they truly are right for the job. When in a business, a patron will often try to find out if everything that is advertised is there and get the most out of what they were paid. If a hotel has a bad rating many people will look for reasons why it is a bad hotel. Clinging to first impressions is what causes anyone and anything to be liked or disliked. Once those impressions are made people do their best to find proof to support their belief. People often times have a hard time giving up their belief or even changing it slightly. The second term I am going to discuss is social comparison. Interplay mentions that social comparison is when a person evaluates themselves to another person. Social comparison occurs when we start to meet people and develop our own idea of who we are and what we want to be. At the moment we compare ourselves to others to determine how we feel about ourselves. Interplay states that our social comparisons are formed from what we consider important and unimportant which they refer to as reference groups. They state

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