爱华网TOPIC: Some people trust their first impressions about aperson’s character, people do not judge a person’s characterquickly because they believe first impressions are often wrong.Compare these two attitudes. Which attitude do you agree with?Support your choice with specific examples.
Every day we get touch with people on various kinds ofoccasions, we work with our workmates, hang out with friends andlive with family. Different people form different impressions inour mind. Some people follow their first impression to judge aperson whereas some others tend to follow a more logical process toknow a person. As far as I am concerned, to believe the firstimpression is too hasty, and to judge a person according to arelatively long term process is more sensible.
First of all, we should clear up a common misconception thatimpression is a process of purely receiving information. Actually,this is not completely true. According to the research ofpsychology, people form knowledge about the outside world followingtwo steps. First, we receive the information of various kinds fromoutside world; second, we process the information receivedaccording to our own ready experience and point of view. These twosteps works simultaneously and influence each other. That is whydifferent students usually hold different opinions on the lecturegiven by the same professor. We may receive the same information inthe first step, but the understanding part--the second step--differ from one another. In this sense, the impression in people'smind is not just a objective information, but a partly subjectiveidea.
With respective to the impression of a person, the theory abovealso works. According to psychologist, the first impression of aperson in the receiver's mind plays a important role in thereceiver's future knowledge about the target person, because it isthe first impression that form a image in a person's mind fromnothing. For example, a lonely girl go to party and meets a boy whotalks to her for a few seconds, she found this boy every attractiveand want to establish a relationship with him. It is quite possiblethe boy is ordinary or not attractive, it is the girl'santicipation to meet a boy that makes her like him. In the futurecommunication, the girl will focus on the attractive aspects of theboy to confirm her previous impression as a kind ofself-confirmation, after all, no one want to say his previousjudgment is wrong, doesn't he? Thus, the first impression can bemisleading and coincident. That is why it is not a good idea tojudge a person this way.
On the contrary, judging a person according to long term contactis a much wiser way. First, it eliminates the possibility of thefalse first impression mentioned above. For example, if you firstmeet your boss on a party, you may find him quite easygoing andgentle; but actually he may be quite a tough and strict person inthe work environment. Your first impression is wrongly affected bythe special occasion of the party. Only by dealing with him in thework place which happens more often than party can you really knowthe personality of him and know how to deal with him. Second,knowing people from long term contact allows you to eliminatespecial motive from some people, if a person get close to youbecause of some motive, he may not show his real face to you. Butyou can always get to know him better after a long termcommunication.
In sum, I don't deny the possible correctness of the firstimpression, but it is not a good idea to judge person, whileletting your afterward recognition of a person to adjust yourimpression is a much wiser idea.
