How First Impressions Are Formed

1984 Words8 Pages
Individuals naturally form automatic, initial impressions about others almost instantly, without taking into context further evidence or information. However, using this initial impression without further context to form a complete profile of a person could lead to an inaccurate perception of the individual. There is debate as to whether or not it is actually possible to change our initial first impressions in the light of later evidence, or once an impression is formed, it is too late to change our judgements.
In this essay, we will first discuss how first impressions are formed, and things that may attribute to our ability to form impressions, such as physical appearance, familiarity, none verbal communication, environment and behaviour. Following this, the difficulty of changing impressions and the different types of processing that are involved in this will be examined, such as Superficial and Systematic Processing. Lastly, ideas such as Correspondent Inference (Jones & Davis, 1965), Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Merton, 1948) and discounting will be discussed, in order to understand why first impressions are so difficult to change.
It is human behaviour to attempt to predict the characteristics and traits of another person instantly, usually without making a conscious effort to do so. An individual’s appearance is usually the first thing that catches attention, and thus tends to be the basis of initial impressions. For example, attractive individuals are usually considered

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