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Reflective Essay On Social Cognition

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People always say “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, especially when meeting new people. However, us being humans—social beings—judge people automatically, the instant that we meet them. Not only is this easy to do, but it also allows us to quickly determine whether we are interested in interacting with a person or not. Sometimes these judgements that we make based on physical appearance or first impressions may not be completely accurate, but a lot of the times, the judgements that are formed may be true. Social cognition— which “concerns how we think about the social world, our attempts to understand complex issues, and why we sometimes are less than ‘optimally rational’”—is very important, especially when it comes to social interaction …show more content…

I also noticed how well Danielle interacted with the customers in the fitting room. She genuinely seemed happy to help them choose outfits and to assist them with any concerns that they had regarding sizes and clothing material. While helping out the customers, Danielle also effortlessly tried to make conversations with the customers and they seemed to be enjoying her presence. From this observation, I immediately compared her with the prototype of extroversion. Extroverted people possess certain attributes such as openness to get to know other people, excessive talking, and friendliness—which is exactly what Danielle seemed to be. I also concluded that she had been a sales associate for a while, due to her expertise with interacting with customers and knowing the exact clothing sizes that the customers needed. My impression formation of Danielle was generally positive due to her because bubbly, enthusiastic personality, but as we spoke, I realized and confirmed that we only had a little bit of similarities. Not only was she a college student like I was, but she also had just started to work at LOFT that same week, which made me feel glad that I was not the only new person and had someone that I could relate to. However, from what I had seen and from our conversation, I knew we wouldn’t interact that much at work, asides from a casual “hi” or “bye” and small talk due to our distinctive personalities—I am more of an introvert—and lack of similarities. Now that I

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