Blogpost 3:First Impressions

WHAT IS FIRST IMPRESSION?

In my previous blog post, I've mentioned about impression. This time, I'm going to discuss about impression. First, what is impression? According to an article written by Sanjeev Himachali entitled FIRST IMPRESSION IS NOT THE LAST IMPRESSION-CHANGING YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION, it is said that "Your impression means your overall personality and it consists of:


1) The Way you carry yourself


2) Your Dress-up


3) The way you express yourself


4) Your Mannerism


5) Your Behavior


6) Your Communication


7) The way you treat the other person"

Therefore, first impressions are made by how you present your self, and how other person sees you. And according to the same article, first impression happens on first meetings. Sometimes people made wrong impressions about you and started to hate you even if they haven't know you for a long time. This is why impressions could also be a possible cause of hate towards other people. Maybe you are confused how does impression made a part in this blog which the really focus is about different identities of other people. Well, it goes like this. In my first blog, it is said there that people are born withe different identities. Now, people having different identities have different perspectives in life as well. When people of different identities met each other, different impressions are made. And these impressions causes people to hate each other.

DOES FIRST IMPRESSION LAST?

According to Jim Meisenheimer, in his article Fast First Impressions, it is true that you never get a second chance to make good first impressions. The author believes that making first impressions nowadays is getting so fast and people can't change the first impressions laid with them. But in Himachali's article, FIRST IMPRESSION IS NOT THE LAST IMPRESSION-CHANGING YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION, he conducted an interview and proven that a person has a higher possibility to change his impression than not changing it. In his experiment, he had 748 respondents and asked them if they will going to change their impression to a certain person. And here goes his report, "Around 34% respondents said that for them the first impression is the final impression and they will go by their gut feeling. 59% respondents said that they will give as many chances as possible to that person to rectify impression. 7% respondents were neutral." More than half of the respondents said that they will going to give another chance to rectify someone's impression. In contrary to Meisenheimer's article, Himachali believes that first impression last..


For me, first impression really don't last. Through my experience, I believe that First impressions don't really last. Let me just share my experience, when I was in high school, many thought that I am not approachable because my eyebrows is high. Some of my classmates rarely talk to me because they thought that I would just ignore them. but as time passes, my classmates were able to get along with me and we started to form friendships.


Another story of mine, before the first day of school in college, I got a chance to talk to my future classmate via Facebook chat. We first started our conversation in a chat box. We talked about so many things and then she suddenly asked what kind of Scholarship grant I am enjoying. Then I said I am n SM Scholar. Then she replied, "Why?!". That question of her made me somehow angry, I just interpreted it wrong because I thought that she doesn't want to believe that I am an SM Scholar. That response of her made my impression to her, that she is so boastful that she doesn't believe in my abilities. But that impression changed when the class started. I got a chance to know her better and made me realized I made a wrong impression because the girl I thought boastful is 360 degrees opposite of that characteristic. That girl I thought too boastful is perfectly humble.


These experiences made up my mind to believe that First impressions don't last. We just need to know better the person and stop judging her incorrectly to avoid conflicts and hate.