First Impression as a Superficial Reflection of a Person

My mum once told me that “A First Impression Says Everything”. And I believe that we’ve ever heard that we can never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Therefore, everything counts in the first impression. Now, let us discuss about the definition of “first impression”. In psychology, a first impression is the opinions when one person encounters another person and forms a mental image of that particular person. Some people may believe that a person’s first impression is generally right. However, it is better not to judge a person’s characters quickly at the very first time because first impression is often wrong. As the saying goes, “Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover”. So, I don’t tend to trust first impression, which means I totally disagree with the statement above based on the following reasons.

First and foremost, as all of us know that, people are multifaceted. No one in this world has only have one-dimensional being who can be categorized into only one specific category. Therefore, first impression can be very deceiving. When it comes into meeting people at the very first time, most people will try not to reveal their nature or their true colour during their first encounters with any strangers although it is not necessarily intentional. Some people are very shy and some people are talkative when they first come across with any strangers. Hence, in my opinion, first impressions are not supposed to be a judgement call about someone’s characters until one gets to know others fairly well and deep who he or she truly is.

Apart from that, it is also found that we don’t just simply judge others instantly based on our engagement in someone unexpectedly at the very first time. Most people tend to make assumptions directly on one’s personality traits during their first meeting with others. The explanation for this statement is, people are likely to behave properly and in a decent manner when they meet an unknown person. Same goes to the online dating, most of the men can sweet talk with you, and even they can act like real gentlemen when they first meet you up. When time goes by, then you will discover that they are actually pretend to be gentlemen. Probably they have motives to achieve or want to get something from you or just want to be closed with the people around you or just playing around with you. So, never ever to be too fast to jump into conclusion that someone we meet up at the first time is well-being or behave nicely. Once again, I would like to against the statement that first impressions are not always accurate.

Last but not least, never be too early to draw any inferences about someone solely by the attires they wear, their skin colour and especially their appearance. Most people tend to judge someone based on these characteristics without considering the person’s intellectual, educational and financial background. From my personal experience, for instance, what I’ve found from my past interviews was, most employers judge a person based on his or her first impression before he or she considers if they will hire us or not. The most terrible part was, some employers even just look for the girls who are pretty good at their appearances such as knowing how to make up and dress up to be their employees even though the job was just being an admin. So, how about if a person appears in a job interview looking crabby with lots of “tattoos” on his or her body, don’t we feel that it is such a prejudice if we just straightforward put on our assumptions that that particular person has bad morals and would not be a perfect fit for the position? Hence, first impression is not always accurate in this case and it shouldn’t be treated as a principle to judge others.

It can therefore be concluded that, first impression is greatly important in our daily lives, but in my opinion, first impressions are sometimes inaccurate reflections of an individual’s true characters and are often the worst means of judging a person’s or the first thing that others see. As for me, it is quite unfair to state a hundred percent sure that you know that person just only having a first impression in mind. I strongly believe that one impression is simply inadequate to evaluate a person.