Are first impressions always the last impressions?
A good judgment of a person’s character is very critical to forming opinions. Research suggests that opinions are often based on first impressions and are usually created within two minutes of meeting someone. Impressions lead to opinions and those opinions give base to judgments. Its human nature to form judgments and opinions based on first look or even by other people’s perspectives. Although, it’s imperative that one is not quick to judge, just by the first look. As A.A.Milne quotes “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them,” it’s only fair that one takes more than just one meeting to form an opinion of someone. First impressions are often unreliable observations of another person’s personality.
In our everyday life, we come across a number of people, who may or may not, end up being our acquaintances. Generally, people tend to befriend those, who, in their opinion are suitable for friendship and are admirable. Often opinions are based on their looks, clothes, and body language etc., in other words their appearance. They say “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and pretty much every time people end up doing the same. A person’s outer persona can be really deceiving but, what catches our eye first, makes a long lasting impression in our minds. It is very natural to feel comfortable with people, who appear or look good, dressed well, seem to be financially sound. It’s how our mind thinks, we believe what we see. So, opinions based on first impressions might not be entirely wrong, but can be very biased.
Circumstances and situations, at times, play a very important role in a person’s character and behavior. Every person is different. Where some people are very reserved, some can be pretty straight forward. People go through a lot of difficult situations and those situations can sometimes form one’s individual character. A person who has had a comfortable life, good education, might have a confident personality whereas a person who has faced difficulties growing up, might not be as sociable. Society also plays a very important role in developing the innate nature of a human being. People come from different walks of life and judging their character, based on how they look or how they talk, is unfair to them. A person’s true nature cannot be figured out from his clothes or his looks or even by his talks, one needs to really know someone better to form any judgments that could affect their future relationship.
There are times when we are just going through a bad day, and it might not be the best day to meet anyone new. To define anyone’s personality on that one bad meeting is injustice to that person and to one’s self as one might miss the golden opportunity of knowing someone really nice. If we make our...