How do you know if your first impression is accurate when meeting someone new?
@incredibleDNA (1744)
Philippines
July 22, 2009 12:04pm CST
When you meet someone for the first time, your first impression typically influences your opinion. If you feel that someone might be a bad person, is it really fair to assume that this is true when they haven’t actually wronged you personally? How can you tell whether or not you should trust your gut instinct in these situations?
For me though, I don't trust my initial impression. I have one for certain, but I give them room to change my mind. I'm always waiting for new information and I play the person's advocate. I try to generate numerous possibilities for their behavior.
2 people like this
6 responses
@dawnald (84070)
• Shingle Springs, California
24 Jul 09
It isn't always right. I can think of one good friend I didn't like at all on first impression. Sometimes it takes time to get to know the real person. People put up fronts and so on...
@surveygeeek (189)
• United States
24 Jul 09
I don't think it's possible to tell who someone is the first time you meet them. I think that sometimes we guess right, but it's more luck than anything else. We've all been in love with people who turned out to be scum, right? We've all had friends stab us in the back when we trusted them. And I'm sure we've all had people we hated that turned out to not be so bad in the end. I can't say that I don't still make snap judgments about people sometimes, because sometimes I just get a feeling about someone, but I don't think there's much validity to those feelings. Also, I have a tendency to trust people that really aren't trustworthy. My fiance points it out all the time, because she has a pretty decent intuition about people, and I don't. I let people walk all over me and still think they're my friend, and wonder why I'm tired all the time.
@colydf (913)
• China
24 Jul 09
I think that our first impression towards someone I do not know before is always wrong, or at least not so accurate. The first time we meet someone, we would like to judge them through the appearance rather than the inner heart. Only when we are familiar with that person can we say what kind of people he or she is.
@mdvarghese (1789)
• Bangalore, India
23 Jul 09
There is a saying "first impression is the best impression". We are judging a man with their words, deeds and the body languages. This judgement will happen in our brain as the computers scanning.So first there will be an impression knowingly or unknowingly. That impression will be the base for the further impressions.In some cases, we will gather infromation from others before we are meeting a person.These impressions we gather from somebody can change after we met them.
@tigeraunt (6331)
• Philippines
22 Jul 09
first impressions are not always correct. learning about the person as time goes by would confirm it. thank you for this discussion. ann
@underdogtoo (9591)
• Philippines
22 Jul 09
I am beginning to think that I am not a good judge of character and I base this on my personal experiences. I tend to gravitate towards the wrong kind of people and I tend to see people in terms of an advantage or an edge to be gained from knowing them. This is not a good policy and I am trying to learn how to judge people better.
