Why first impression is the best impression

A team of experts from Canada, Belgium and the US have found that new experiences that contradict a first impression become “bound” to the context in which they were made, whereas first impressions still dominate in other contexts.

“Imagine you have a new colleague at work and your impression of that person is not very favourable. A few weeks later, you meet your colleague at a party and you realise he is actually a very nice guy,” said lead author Bertram Gawronski of the University of Western Ontario.

“Although you know your first impression was wrong, your gut response to your new colleague will be influenced by your new experience only in contexts that are similar to the party. However, your first impression will still dominate all other contexts,” Gawronski was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

According to the researchers, our brain stores expectancy-violating experiences as exceptions-to-the-rule, such that the rule is treated as valid except for the specific context in which it has been violated.

To investigate this theory, Gawronski and his collaborators recruited a group of volunteers and showed them either positive or negative information about an unknown individual on a computer screen. Later in the study participants were presented with new information about the same individual, which was inconsistent with the initial information.

To study the influence of contexts, the researchers subtly changed the background colour of the computer screen while participants formed an impression of the target person.

When they measured participants’ spontaneous reactions to an image of the target person, it was found that the new information influenced participants’ reactions only when the person was presented against the background in which the new information had been learned.

Otherwise, participants’ reactions were still dominated by the first information when the target person was presented against other backgrounds.