Personal Experience Regarding First Impressions
Confirmation bias is an interesting phenomenon; it explains people's misplaced confidence when evaluating someone’s character based on first impressions. If people allow their first impressions to be challenged, there is a chance that subsequent information will compel a revision. However, not everyone is willing to change their first impressions; somehow, their belief in being a good judge of character is threatened if their impression changes.
In this case, there is a resistance to new information that may challenge what they already believe is true. They will likely focus only on details that confirm their first impression while ignoring those that do not. This is why so many insist that, based on “sound” first impressions, they are excellent judges of character. Clearly, this is not necessarily so.
For this Discussion, you will consider a personal experience regarding first impressions and apply social psychology theory to explore how impressions form quickly and persist.
Think of times when your first impressions of others were inaccurate.
Review the Learning Resources for this week and reflect on how social psychology theory explains why first impressions persist and how they can be changed.
Post a description of a time when you were certain your first impression of someone you had just met was accurate, only to discover subsequently that you were mistaken. Describe how social psychology theory explains this phenomenon.
First Impressions Essay
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Confirmation bias is a widely debated epistemically problematic cognition that challenges reliable belief development and correction of inaccurate perceptions (Peters, 2022). When I began working in a new company, I encountered a colleague with who I formed a negative first impression. On the first day of interacting with him, I perceived him as rude, distant, and uncooperative. I was confident of my impression's accuracy and believed it would be challenging to work with him. However, I later received feedback from other colleagues with a positive perception concerning this particular colleague. They thought that he was a team player, knowledgeable, and helpful. At first, I ignored such feedback and progressed to emphasizing cases that confirmed my first negative impressions, like his lack of interest in small talk and occasional curt responses. But after serious reflection, I accepted that confirmation bias affected my first impression. This bias involved selectively remembering and attending to data confirming my adverse perception of this colleague while ignoring the evidence challenging the perception. Social psychology theory proposes that individuals often seek information that reinforces the...