Have you ever thought about how fast we’re forming an image of what’s before us, at what speed do we go from what we see to what we intuit, have you noticed that our brain acts almost automatically to draw a profile of those around us?These are some of the phenomena that occur around first impressions.
A study by Bert Decker confirms that the brain makes a first impression on the person we meet in just two seconds, in those first moments the brain creates 50% of the image and it will be in the next 4 minutes that it will complete the rest of your idea about the person. Later, this mental image will largely condition our interaction with it, as we tend to see.
- Let’s give a simple example to illustrate what we’re saying.
- Imagine.
- When we form the image of a person we just met.
- That we think it’s nice.
- If we think about it.
- We’re more likely to be kind too.
- So the other person will remain kind too.
- Or if they haven’t.
- It can be.
- This is one of the reasons that makes it harder to change a first impression: one behaves with the other according to it.
Understanding how we form first impressions is fascinating: the brain acts unconsciously and fills out a lot of data, even without having it, as you can see in a study by psychologist Nalini Ambady, in which it was proven that 10 seconds of video in which a teacher appeared was enough for students to leave a first impression, but that’s not all , because this first impression, on average, differed very little from the impression of the students who had followed the teacher’s class for an entire semester. us how quickly our brain creates a complete picture of who we see.
The conclusion we can draw from all this is the importance of our nonverbal language and external appearance. The way we present ourselves or show ourselves at first will be part of the image others have of us.
“There’s no second chance for a first impression. ?Oscar Wilde-
We are influenced, consciously and unconsciously, by society and culture, what exists around us and our history of living with these factors condition the first impression we store in our brain, sometimes even without having faced it, and then we act almost without we figure out. that.
Does society tell us how to dress, how to act, how to talk?And we have encoded many of the parameters that are part of this first impression in this regard: we notice if they correspond to what the company approves (which may or may not match what we approve). Those who don’t will probably attract our attention more and will be a highlight of this first impression, so let’s code it faster.
Much of this process is unconscious: we have done so without realizing it, which directly complicates its influence. However, what we can do is be careful when calibrating the reliability of this image, trusting it and being open to modification, this will benefit us directly, as it will improve the quality of our new relationships.
We’re not just a first impression, an external image: each of us has a lot in us and we deserve someone to take the time to get to know each other. As we’ve seen, we don’t miss the first impression much if we compare it to the impression we have after a few months.
But look, this happens with relationships that are not very close, such as that of a teacher and a student, with deeper relationships, the truth is that this first image over time undergoes many changes, either because we are wrong to print it or because the other changes.
Studies show that we are good enough to generate first impressions, in a matter of seconds we can complete information that others don’t say and get things right.
On the other hand, what about that? He thinks that just as society is a line of action, we are able to deceive our interlocutor quite easily by showing ourselves within the “normal” boundaries that are defined socially. It will be easy to create a positive image if we know in advance what the other would like to find in us.
In any case, first impressions, even if they are good, are rarely accurate, their main advantage is that they serve to create expectations or to draw up action plans: for example, for the other person to make a good impression. which contains assumptions that often exclude the possibility of actually being known.