How do first impressions affect

one’s behavior?
 ABSTRACT

The study aimed at understanding how first impressions

affect one’s behavior. The definition of a first impression is
“the event when one person first encounters another person
and forms a mental image of that person.” The main objective
of the study is to understand how these first impressions are
influenced and do people find it difficult to change their
opinion when presented with evidence to the contrary.

The science of first impressions is complex, influenced by

circumstances beyond its control, neurological processes we
don't fully comprehend, and prejudices that are erroneous.
But if we can have a greater understanding of what's going
on, then might be able to find the one.

If we do something which is negatively viewed by people we

meet for the first time, it will take a lot of effort to reverse
that first impression – assuming we are even given the
opportunity. These kinds of instances are studied
substantially to analyze the further behavioral changes that
might influence people to have prejudice.

Keywords: First impressions, influence, judge, people,

behavior.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
To analyze and study how people form first impressions
about others and will have any effect on their behavior later.

OBJECTIVES:
 To know if first impressions are the best impressions.
 To understand what factors people, judge first
impressions.
 To study if first impressions are misleading or do they
build trust.
 To understand if people put efforts to make a first
impression.
 To analyze what people, feel if their first impression
about a person is wrong.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

“You will never get a second chance to make a first

impression.” - Will Rogers
People can draw a specific trait inference from the facial
appearance with as little as a tenth of a second of exposure
time, according to Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov's
research article on first impressions. Additional exposure
time boosts judgment confidence and allows for more distinct
trait perceptions. The judgments, on the other hand, are
already based on the first inference.
“First impressions last a long time.” This well-known
saying encapsulates one of the numerous reasons why social
psychologists must examine people's first impressions. Any
information about a person shapes our impressions and
judgments about her, from her physical characteristics to her
nonverbal and verbal behaviors, as well as the environment
she lives in (e.g., Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993; Gosling, Ko,
Mannarell, & Morris, 2002). First impressions have been
found to linger for months (Gunaydin, Selcuk, & Zayas,
2017) and can influence personal judgments even when there
are conflicting facts about the person (e.g., Rydell &
McConnell, 2006).
Recent advancements in neuroimaging techniques have
revealed details about the neural circuits involved in
perception. Whenever we focus about another person, the
prefrontal cortex becomes quite active.
The social cognition literature uses a variety of notions to
conceptualize impressions. People create split-second
impressions of others' allegedly stable features, such as
trustworthiness and competency, which is the most
researched sort of impression in social cognition. They do
this based on others' facial looks (e.g., Willis & Todorov,
2006) and simple behaviors — for example, people may
conclude that a person who takes an elevator up one flight is
lazy (Uleman, Blader, & Todorov, 2005). Others' aims,
values, and beliefs have also been found to have an impact on
first impressions (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016).
People also tend to believe that others share their beliefs and
values more than they do, so we should not abuse the benefit
of the doubt by expressing our differences with someone
we've just met.
Humans are eager to "essentialize" the activities of others,
this is known as a psychological phenomenon known as the
"Fundamental attribution error."
The fundamental attribution bias is one of the most common
cognitive biases humans have: we prefer to attribute other
people's behaviors to their inherent qualities or
(in)competence, but we tend to attribute our behaviors to
external circumstances and surroundings.
"First impressions are everything," as the saying goes. This
is supported by social psychological studies. The primacy
effect reflects the propensity for information learned early to
be given more weight than information learned subsequently.
Solomon Asch, during 1946- investigated the primacy effect
in a study that used sentences with inverted adjective order. A
character was classified as either "envious, stubborn, critical,
impulsive, industrious, and intellectual" or "intelligent,
industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious" in a
study with two groups. The results showed that the second
description resulted in a higher rating for the person.
Likewise, another effect known as the halo effect (also
known as the halo error) occurs when positive perceptions of
a person, company, brand, or product in one area influence
one's attitude or feelings in other areas. The halo effect is "the
term given to the phenomena in which evaluators are
influenced by earlier performance or personality
judgements." The halo effect, a cognitive bias, can make it
difficult for anyone to trust a person, a product, or a brand
based on an erroneous perception about what is good or
harmful.
Edward Thorndike coined the phrase. The halo effect is when
a person notices that the individual in the photograph is
attractive, well groomed, and appropriately attired, and uses a
mental heuristic to presume that the person in the photograph
is a decent person regarding the rules of that person's social
concept. The individual's preferences, preconceptions,
beliefs, aspirations, and social perception are all reflected in
this continual inaccuracy in judgement.
While, bandwagon effect describes our tendency to adopt
particular habits or beliefs simply because many others do.
Anchoring bias is a cognitive bias in which we place too
much weight on the first bit of information we are provided
about a topic. We perceive newer information from the point
of reference of our anchor when making arrangements or
making predictions about something, rather than seeing it
objectively. This can distort our perceptions and hinder us
from changing our plans or forecasts as frequently as we
should.
Later research on first impression bias focuses on how other
cognitive biases like the halo effect, bandwagon effect,
primacy effect, anchoring bias and confirmation bias
reinforce the bias.
The roots of judging people based on facial expressions have
been studied since the 13th century with the term
‘Physiognomy’. The study of the systematic connection of
psychological qualities to facial features or bodily form is
referred to as physiognomy.
Aristotle is credited with writing the first systematic treatise
on physiognomy. He devoted six chapters to the study
method, general signs of character, specific manifestations of
dispositions, strength and weakness, brilliance and ignorance,
and so on. Then he looked at the characters created by the
various attributes, as well as color, hair, body, limbs, gait,
and voice. When it comes to noses, he argues that those with
thick, bulbous ends are swinish; sharp-tipped noses are
irascible, easily aroused, like dogs; rounded, broad, obtuse
noses are lionlike; slender, hooked noses are eaglelike; and so
on.

The symmetry of the face has a role in first impressions as

well. According to studies, seeing someone with a
proportionate face makes us think of them as clever, caring,
and trustworthy. Facial expressions also influence how we
judge people. Smiling faces are rated higher on a variety of
characteristics, including relatability, trustworthiness, and
attractiveness.
Also, any nonverbal communication, such as facial
expressions, body posture, touching, voice frequencies, and
interpersonal distance, is referred to as nonverbal conduct.
Nonverbal behaviours include things like interpersonal space
(how far away the other person stands from you), tone of
voice, eye look, hand gestures, and body positions, among
others (Hostetter, 2011). (DePaulo et al., 2003).
Well before the evolution of language, the skill to decode
nonverbal behaviour is learnt (Walker-Andrews, 2008).
People with a nice tone of voice and relaxed posture, who
stand a comfortable distance away from all of us, and who
gaze at and touch us for the "correct" duration of time too
much or too little—are more appealing to us. And, of course,
behaviour counts; quicker walkers are viewed as happier and
more powerful than slower walkers (Montepare & Zebrowitz-
McArthur, 1988).
"First impressions are often the truest," wrote British
writer William Hazlitt, "as we find (not infrequently) after
we've been wheedled out of them by specious professions or
practised conduct." A man's appearance is the result of years
of work; it is imprinted on his face by the events of his entire
life, if not, by the hand of nature, and that it's difficult to
remove." The truth is that a person's first impression of you
can have a big impact on how they see you now and in the
future.
Most of us are overconfident in our pre-formed ideas, not
realizing that relying on our automatic judgments, which are
often based on memories, might be risky. These are what I
refer to as "first impression traps," or variables that have a
significant impact on how we view someone and can thus be
deceiving.
It is possible to extrapolate character from attributes if it is
assumed that natural affections change both the body and the
soul. I say "natural" because, while learning music may have
changed a person's soul, this is not one of the affections that
are natural to us; rather, when I converse of natural emotions,
I am referring to passions and desires. If this is allowed, and
there is a proportional sign for each change, and we can
articulate the affection and sign unique to each type of
animal, we will be able to infer character from traits. — Prior
Analytics 2.27 (Trans. A. J. Jenkinson)
"A first impression can be deceiving," argues Princeton
University professor Alexander Todorov, author of Face
Value: The Persuasive Effect of First Impressions. "Trying to
find out who someone is based on a single exposure is
foolish." About random people, we just form first
impressions. As a result, they are naturally pretentious."
Additionally, while many of these studies will include giving
individuals images of strangers and seeing how long it takes
them to score specific features, the results may vary
depending on the demographic. Age, gender, colour, and
other personal characteristics all play significant roles in how
people make assumptions about others. That is the primary
reason for the disparity in outcomes: we all digest
information at different speeds. Simply put, all of these
studies use distinct test groups and testing techniques, and
none of them can be replicated in a real-world setting.
Faces give off superficial, broad impressions that can be
misleading. When we consider this in the domain of dating
apps, we must also consider the effects of photo composition.
Composite photographs will be used in a lot of face research.
These photographs are computer-generated "averages" that
combine several components from real images and are
typically displayed as passport photos. These aren't the kinds
of faces we'd expect to see on dating profiles.
The framing of photographs of real people has a significant
impact. Portraits taken from a low perspective, for instance,
are more likely to be perceived as dominant, which is good
for men but negative for women and portraits shot from a
high angle shows the opposite.
From an evolutionary standpoint, the rate at which distinct
attributes are noticed in first impressions may be linked to
what has been necessary for survival. In a study of human
faces, for example, the two attributes that were most rapidly
noticed and appraised were trustworthiness and
attractiveness.
People are generally adept at judging other people's
personality qualities, however there appears to be a variation
in first impression assessments between older and younger
adults. Young adult target photographs were assessed to be
healthier, more trustworthy, and less hostile by older people,
but more aggressive by younger adults. Due to a slower
processing speed, older persons may have a lesser sensitivity
to negative cues, causing them to see young adults' facial
features as more favourable.
In 2017, Professor Todorov discovered that our first views of
others are based on our own experiences in an experiment.
Participants in the study were shown hundreds of faces and
asked to rate their trustworthiness, attractiveness,
competence, and other qualities. The findings revealed that
exposure to many faces alters not just what people see as
normal looks, but also which ones they value more
favourably (more the typical faces, more positively they are
examined).
People are typically quite good at person perception—the
procedure of learning about the other people—and our brains
are built to assist us in making quick judgments about others
(Haselton & Funder, 2006; Macrae & Quadflieg, 2010).
Infants prefer to stare at people's faces over other visual
patterns, and youngsters learn to recognise people and their
emotional responses fast (Turati, Cassia, Simion, & Leo,
2006). As adults, we can identify and remember an almost
infinite number of people as we navigate our social contexts
(Haxby, Hoffman, & Gobbini, 2000), and we create fast and
unconscious impressions about those others (Carlston &
Skowronski, 2005; Fletcher-Watson, Findlay, Leekam, &
Benson, 2008). Moreover, our first impressions are very
correct, at least in some circumstances (Ambady, Bernieri, &
Richeson, 2000).
'These drivers of perceptions are about one's learning of
faces, not about facial features per se.' In other words, you
choose faces that are closer to your own idea of a normal
face, despite the fact that there is no such thing as the
"average" human face. ' The journal Nature Human
Behaviour published his findings, in which he says, different
images of the same person may bring out differing
impressions each time.
Things we assume or judge of a person just passing by also
are based on their:
 You examine the appearance of the other person.
 You study their facial expressions.
 You assume things about their lives.
 And you create a filter for first impressions.

It's debatable whether first impressions are accurate. Daniel

Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate and author of Thinking, Fast
and Slow, believes that first impressions are correct to some
extent. According to Kahneman, you can swiftly determine
whether or not you will like someone. However, he adds a
caveat: first impressions aren't always accurate, and
correcting them can be difficult due to the halo effect and/or
confirmation bias.
Furthermore, what we consider to be qualities of a competent
individual do not always equate to actual qualities.
 INTRODUCTION

First Impressions are the initial psychological understanding

that one person assumes about the opposite person. They are
made as fast as in the 1st 7 seconds people meet and some
also decide on the trustworthiness of others in 10th of a
second.
After those 7 seconds, all additional information you acquire
about the other individual will be sifted through first
impression.
While many form a first impression when they meet
physically looking at each other, few people also can form
first impressions even without having a face-to-face meet by
listening to their voice. Factors like confidence, body
language, facial expressions, voice modulation, language,
physical appearance, age, gender, dressing styles, etc., all
matter in forming a strong assumption about other’s
personality.
Because of the volume of information, you take in at once,
impression formation is quick and needs minimal mental
effort. The worst part is that it is consistently incorrect and
biased.
Why is it so crucial to make a good first impression? What
significance does the initial impression play in generating an
image that can remain a long time, if not forever? The
solution is straightforward. When we encounter someone, we
haven't ever met before, they are completely unaware of our
identity. They have no knowledge of who we are because
they are unfamiliar with us or never met us. As a result,
people pass judgement on us based on what they see and
hear. Everything else fades into the background.
What we say, how we act, and everything else that reveals
anything whatsoever about our personality creates the
groundwork for the other person to form an impression of our
personality or character.
Although it is common for people to wrongly assume others
in many aspects, because some tend to be conscious about
making a good and positive first impression. For this reason,
people may show themselves completely contrary to what
they actually are.
People generally form first impression based on
preconceptions they have created out of the experiences they
have been through. Inbound ideologies like stereotypes,
prejudice and discrimination have major influence in forming
first impressons.
According to research, the longer time participants are given
to establish an impression, the more confident they are in
their reports and also the more information beyond physical
appearance will be considered. When the target presents
themselves honestly, individuals are not only quick to create
first impressions, but they are also fairly accurate. It's a
miracle we ever meet somebody who is drawn to us as much
as we are to them.
People aren't particularly excellent at identifying lies or
feigned emotions. Participants in the study who said they
formed accurate impressions of specific targets had more
accurate perceptions of those targets that matched what
others said about them. Individuals are also reasonably good
at predicting the first impression they will make on others.
"When individuals encounter someone for the first time, they
prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt," Critcher said.
"It's a responsive optimism — one that encourages us to
function on just enough faith to determine whether they're
deserving of a collective investment — till they show us
wrong."
First impressions tend to be stable once formed. A study
concluded that, when subjects are given photographs of few
people to look at and give their opinion and when they
actually met face-to-face one month later, their opinion did
not differ notably.
However, to argue that the first impression is the last is
perhaps an exaggeration, because mistakes can be corrected,
just like anything else. To rectify the mistake that was done
in the first place, one might have to put in significant effort
and squander a significant amount of time. As a result, it is
best to exercise extreme caution and place a strong emphasis
on generating a good first impression.
Erica Boothby, a Cornell University postdoctoral researcher,
and Gus Cooney, a Harvard University postdoctoral
researcher, said that, "people are generally timid, concerned
about the impression they're leaving on others, and too
judgemental of their own competence when it comes to social
engagement and discussion."
People favour others who are similar to them in terms of
appearance, personality, attitude, belief, and behaviour,
whether consciously or unconsciously aware of it. We also
have a tendency to seek out similarity in others. We may
label someone arrogant if we see them for the first time and
they appear like someone we know who is arrogant. People
frequently link the emotions they experienced in your
company to your personality. This means that if you make
someone uncomfortable at your first encounter, they may
form a negative impression of you.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Qualitative research
Qualitative research is a research method that involves
collecting and analyzing non-numerical data in the form of
interviews, and questionnaires through open-ended questions.
The method of research used is qualitative research where
interviews are conducted among a selected sample group.
This case study used thematic analysis focusing on the
content and to systematically identify patterns or core factors
involved.
Collected secondary data from internet articles and research
thesis published from different sources.
Sampling
The sampling method used for this study is random sampling
and snowball sampling. These methods are used because the
population is chosen on a random basis and not restricted to
any particular gender or age group.
Sample size
The sample size is the total number of samples selected for
the study from the sample population. The sample size is
randomly selected. The sample size for this research is 50.
Variables

 Independent variable – The questionnaire presented

to the sample.
 Dependent variable – The responses given by the
sample.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
Your gender?
Your age?
1. Do first impressions matter?
2. How long will it take for you to form a first impression
of someone?
3. Will you be conscious about making a good first
impression?
4. Are 1st impressions the best/ last impressions?
5. Do you think last impressions are more effective than
1st impressions?
6. If someone made a bad impression on you, will you
still be open to know them?
7. Do you have confidence in the judgment you make
during the first meeting?
8. Does the opposite person’s gender matter to form a
positive first impression?
9. Do you think someone else's impression of an
individual would influence your first impression of that
person?
10.Do you think the person in this photograph is
trustworthy?
11. From the below image whom do you feel more trust
worthy?
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