First Impressions

Apologies if this has been done to death before....

On getting first impressions of others have you ever changed your original personal opinion of someone wether that be someone on a forum or offline?

In psychology, a first impression is the event when one person first encounters another person and forms a mental image of that person. Impression accuracy varies depending on the observer and the target (person, object, scene, etc.) being observed. First impressions are based on a wide range of characteristics: age, race, culture, language, gender, physical appearance, accent, posture, voice, number of people present, and time allowed to process.The first impressions individuals give to others could greatly influence how they are treated and viewed in many contexts of everyday life. Taken from Wiki :

Re: First Impressions

I've often changed my mind about someone I've met.

My first impression is always only ever a rough guideline ... then I fill in the gaps based on my own experience and dealings with them.
Always assuming they hang around long enough to form a favourable one of me

Re: First Impressions

I have learnt not to rely on first impressions, they can be sooo wrong.
I try to have a favourable impression of everyone until they prove otherwise .

Re: First Impressions

I read an article today that said tests have been conducted that show we are able to guess a person's sex, age, and even size from hearing only their voice played. They were saying about how we build an impression of someone over the telephone.
I shouldn't think it hard to tell the sex, but age and size would take some doing surely?

Re: First Impressions

I'm so with you on that one Meg!

Re: First Impressions

Size is a hard one to guage I would think

Re: First Impressions

I agree, but apparently they had quite astonishing accuracy in trials.
Weird aint it.

I do think older people's voices change slightly over the years though.

Re: First Impressions

I tend to get gut feelings on people. Some, I instantly feel at ease with and can speak to them effortlessly. Others, either my hackles go up or I find them hard work to make conversation with.
Just hearing a voice can be misleading and on meeting them, they are rarely as you envisaged them!

Re: First Impressions

I usually form an opinion in my mind firstly and usually im not wrong on my first instincts.....but It isnt always the case.
Once ive formed that initial vibe from someone its very hard for me to move away from that.

Re: First Impressions

Yes they tend to get deeper and more crackly Mups