The 6 psychological keys to fall well to others
Oscar Wilde once said that "there is never a second chance to make a first good impression" and he was not wrong. And it is that this to fall well to others begins with a furtive look, and our unconscious dictates sentence.
How to make a good impression to please others?
The social psychologist John Bargh of Yale University, concluded in his research that our brain only needs two tenths of a second to form the first impression. Later the information was extended and thanks to neuroimaging techniques it was shown that this first impression comes from the limbic system, which is the brain system in charge of emotional management, and more specifically, the amygdala.
In this short process we sentence people: if they have made a good impression on us, it will be easier for us to be predisposed to establish a relationship with them. If they have caused us a bad impression ... they will have it much more complicated.
The key is in the first impression
In fact, lA rationality is far from being involved in the process of formation of impressions and it is more about an emotional and unconscious process. Therefore, the rapidity of formation, the emotionality and the resistance to change constitute the fundamental characteristics of the social impression, which is the genesis of our sympathy for some people.
With this rapidity and intuition, we are exposed to being categorized every time we meet new people in the different environments in which we live on a day-to-day basis. Do you usually like strangers well or badly? The answer to this question is not in the critical and rational thinking of the people you know for the first time, but in unconscious mechanisms that we will explain next
More information: "10 tips to give a good first impression"
Discovering the mechanisms of thought associated with first impressions
The impression emerges from social interaction and begins with the first contact with the person . In this first contact, an assessment occurs in which, based on observable information, we infer unobservable features. This assessment will determine future interactions and the relationship between the subjects.
When carried out in an emotional and intuitive way, the global impressions that we form from other people are dominated by idiosyncratic personal constructs and stereotypes. Research indicates that by forming impressions of other people we consider the components and then averaging them in complex ways, or that certain components can influence the interpretation and meaning of all other components and dominate the resulting impression. We tend to remember individuals in terms of their traits , but also in terms of their behavior and appearance. They can be stored as individuals: Paco, María, Antonio; or as members of a social category: the indie, the hipster, the athlete, etc. Some of us fall better, and others worse, according to multiple variables that interact with our beliefs, prejudices and preferences.
The impression occurs when the perceiver "organizes" the information he receives from the person perceived. The result of the process is a global, coherent image of the person perceived: the first impression. From the first impression We decide how we feel and what we will do about a person ; whether we will like it or not. If the first impression is negative, it is most likely that we do not try to relate to that person. The first impression has informed us of everything we wanted to know and since it is based on the activation of a brain structure not based on reason, it is very resistant to change.
Biases involved in impressions
As we said before, impressions are characterized by their lack of rationality and their brevity of training, which means that heuristic pathways and cognitive biases are very determinant in their creation.
They play an essential role in explaining why someone likes us, or badly, without knowing exactly why this is so.
1. Perceptual accentuation
It consists in the valuation of the people according to their group of belonging. The evaluation will depend on the schemes and identity categories that the observer has. If the group of belonging that we attribute to the person has a high value for us, then the assessment will be positive.
On the other hand, If we put you in a group to which we have a negative attitude, our first impression will be decisive . This bias is the result of representational heuristic
2. Halo effect
It is a frequent bias of human perception, which consists in valuing people from an outstanding feature, positive or negative, and generalize from that first impression towards characteristics that the person may not present, that is, associate positive characteristics others equally positive . We take one or two positive characteristics and only for it, others are supposed to be equally positive or vice versa. For example, for having such a great and innovative product as the Ipad, every product that we see from Apple we assume is good and innovative.
Positive traits are generalized to a brand for a single product that has an outstanding trait . The same goes for attractive people. For the only observable fact of being beautiful, they are credited with features of intelligence, health and economic well-being that we have no proof that they present, but this bias tells us that the beautiful is good, healthy, has money and is influential.
3. Effect of mere exposure
The mere repeated exposure of a subject to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the positive attitude to increase towards this stimulus. This leads to a positive assessment of people or things that are familiar that do not have any negative emotion or associated prejudice.
For example, we can remember the typical song that you do not like at first but then with each exhibition you like it more.
4. Perceptive defense
It is based on the delayed recognition of stimuli or threatening information , that is, what I do not want to see. The well-known phrase "love is blind" is explained by this bias. When someone likes us first or we are in love with them, we can seldom see the shortcomings they present while for the rest of our friends and family members they are obvious.
5. Perceptive insight
Rapid recognition of stimuli and information that may benefit our interests . If we know someone who practices the same sport as us, is a fan of our favorite series, has the same studies or any other similarity, it will stand out among the others when we meet him in the corridors.
6. Mood
The state of mind we have at the moment always influences the impressions we make . We may know someone wonderful but if at that time we are deeply angry or sad, the laws of affective infusion tell us that we will take an impression of that negative person.
To fall well is in your hand if you know the keys of the first impressions
I would like to let you know an infallible system so as not to fall into these biases and thus form an impression of someone for what he really is, and not for what the human being is capable of erring when the 1 thinking system is active
But nevertheless, We are all human and fall prey to these biases to a greater or lesser extent by human condition . So for first impressions, the best antidote is to know the existence of these biases and know which of them is acting on our first impression. On the other hand, you can use these biases in your favor to make a good impression. If you know the interests and tastes of the person you want to make a good impression, the halo effect and the perceptual accentuation, among others, can act in your favor.
After all, Remember that there are no second chances when it comes to causing first impressions .
