FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND THEIR POWER, How first impressions strike us and their power to change actions
Jacob XXXXXX
CSU-Global

ABSTRACT
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This paper will look at first impressions, how they strike us, the powerful ways in which they change our behavior and affect our decisions.

How first impressions strike us and their power to change actions

First impressions strike us in many different ways. They are often a powerful inhibitor which change the ways in which we would interact with others around us. Often times they are not indicative of the person we are meeting, yet they can permanently alter the ways in which we view others and the ways in which we interact with others. They are however not always permanent impressions.
Many times a first impression can be less than desirable for many reasons. Such reasons can range from a person feeling under the weather, a person having unrelated stressors affecting their behavior to an unplanned and inconvenient meeting of two people. When a first impression is less than desirable for the meete, the meetor can tend to make certain assumptions about the meete. These assumptions can range from believing that the meete is less than capable at a particular task/job to believing that the meete is perhaps an undereducated and unmotivated person. However, the same can be said in reciprocal. Take for example a person who has nothing more than a high school diploma and a slightly better than minimum wage job. That person on a particular day is sporting a designer label, three piece suit and is walking down the sidewalk in Lower Manhattan. Upon engaging this individual, one might be lead to believe that he is a highly educated, highly successful businessman who works downtown and lives in a penthouse suite. Those in which he comes into contact with will assuredly treat him differently than those who might see him wearing older Carhartt brand work jeans and a well worn t-shirt.
I personally have experienced this dynamic when just last year, I met a man named Alan Johnson who was a candidate for the Colorado State House of Representatives. I had been told many good things about him and that he was a very talented and bright prospective politician. Upon meeting him for the first time, I wondered to myself if this was indeed the same man who had been described to me. He was wearing frumpy old blue jeans and an older hoodie sweatshirt. He spoke softly and could easily have been described as an introvert. This was not a very striking first impression and I don’t believe it to have been ideal for him.
There was a similar dynamic in effect when I read the piece labeled “First Impressions” on the Big Dog, Little Dog Performance Juxtapositions page. After reading the first scenario, I pictured John as a successful, outgoing businessman. I pictured an individual who was motivated, probably wearing a suit and sporting a clean shaven face. He struck me as a leader and as probably having personality traits that lend themselves to him exuding self confidence and self assuredness. He seemed like a man with a tightly cropped hair cut and a solid college education.
After reading the second scenario, I visualized John as someone who is probably not very successful, probably not a sharp dresser and not a leader. He struck me as a man who works as part of a team, but who would not necessarily be viewed as a potential for management/leadership within his professional organization. I envisioned a person who may possibly be depressed and a man who most would not want to spend their spare time around.
After rereading the setting in reverse order, I have a lot of trouble visualizing him differently. I can generate a clear picture in my mind with both scenarios and perhaps it is due to me seeing two different people in my head, but the answer I have here is not a very clear one as I am not very clear on exactly what the question means. Instead of the first scenario “burning” a vision of one type of person into my mind and thus not being affected by the second, I tend to see them as two different people, although I realize that the exercise is intended to reflect the same man. So I do not experience a different view after reading it in reverse. Rather, I have two distinctly different visions in my mind.
Although first impressions are generally viewed as lasting impressions, they are not always necessarily the final vision a person may keep in their mind. As evidenced by my experience with reading about John, I was able to form a separate and distinct opinion of him with both of the scenarios.

References
Allyson Holbrook, Ohio State University et. al. http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcreprints/hkvgc01.pdf Leadership and Human Behavior
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadhb.html