top of your head and see how you feel in the presence of each new person. Notice whether your body feels ill at ease or stressed in any way.
(Go to www.snapfirstimpressions.com for “Body Check In” — my instructions and a video on how to pay closer attention to your body’s signals when you meet other people.)
The Gift of Intuition
Shortly after my drugstore incident, I read Gavin de Becker’s bestseller The Gift of Fear. His premise: We are all “expert at predicting violent behavior. Like every creature, you can know when you are in the presence of danger. You have the gift of a brilliant internal guardian that stands ready to warn you of hazards and guide you through risky situations.” We downplay this remarkable inherent ability. Intuition, de Becker writes, “is often described as emotional, unreasonable, or inexplicable.” In general, “we much prefer logic.” We “worship logic, even when it’s wrong, and deny intuition, even when it’s right.”8
At his website — Gavindebecker.com — you can access information about signs we shouldn’t ignore. Three important danger signals that he describes are particularly helpful to note when strangers make insistent attempts at conversation, refuse to take no for an answer, and press unwanted offers of help on you: these people seem to be charged up rather than discouraged by your tension, stress, or rejection of them; don’t let you finish a sentence; or give you excessive compliments, touch you, and continue to touch you even when you freeze, block, or pull away. These behaviors may seem romantic in movies, but they are not comfortable in real life. A member of one of my first-impressions workshops came up after the break and told me, “I just realized my ex-husband gave all the verbal and nonverbal signals you showed us the day I met him. I was scared of him in that first meeting, but he was so overwhelming that I let him into my life.”
(More insights into recognizing danger and understanding our stress responses can be found at my website, www.snapfirstimpressions.com.)
First Impressions Are Sticky
Not only do we form first impressions very quickly, but also, as research has shown, it can take up to six months of constant interaction to change an incorrect first impression. This means that if you meet someone who for some reason doesn’t like you, it might take that person six months to change his mind and realize you’re a wonderful human being. That’s the power of the “primacy effect.” We tend to assign more weight to our first impression than to our later impressions. The primacy effect means that first impressions affect all future thoughts about the person. They are resistant to change partly because they are connected to our basic survival instincts.
If we get good vibes from someone we meet, we may create what I call a “halo” around her. After that meeting, every time she smiles at us, makes full eye contact, or turns her heart toward us, we subconsciously note it and take it as further evidence of her niceness. Once the halo effect has taken hold, we tend to downplay any negative nonverbals we may pick up. If our friend is rude to a waiter, raising her voice and pointing her finger, we’re apt to brush it off with “Well, the waiter was ignoring us.” The halo makes it hard for us to change our first impression.
The Power of Negative Impressions
Dan met Donna, the wife of his friend Jay. “She was sour-faced and didn’t look at me when I introduced myself,” he says. “She left the room sighing and came back and dropped the baskets of chips and crackers in front of us and sat far away. That was ten years ago, and every time I am with her I see how far away she sits from me and how she rarely laughs, and I think, ‘What a cold person.’”
The halo effect can be a marvelous thing. Research on happy marriages has shown that a spouse who fell in love at first sight may maintain a halo around his mate that allows him to be more forgiving of small transgressions. Noticing his wife commit a minor indiscretion, he is able to think, “Oh, well, that’s a little blip on this incredibly marvelous person.” This ability makes for a healthy, happy marriage. But as you might guess, the halo effect is dangerous if you don’t notice a big ole blimp flying over you with flashing lights saying, “Danger! Danger!”
Negative first impressions stick as a result of what I call the “devil effect.” Let’s say that, on the morning of your first day on a new job, you are in the parking lot waiting to pull into a space that someone is vacating. Though your signal is blinking to show your intention to take the space, another car swoops in and steals it. The parking-space poacher hops out of her car, smiles and laughs, and then shrugs her shoulders, turning quickly and walking away.
Angels and Devils
Have you experienced the halo or devil effect? Take a moment to think about a time when you had a good first impression of someone, and about the information you gathered to confirm that impression. Were you rewarded with a good friendship or business interaction? Now remember a time when you had a bad feeling about someone and later learned your impression was correct. What specific behaviors did you see or hear that confirmed your impressions? How did you feel when you first met each of these people? How did you feel around them in later interactions?
(Go to www.snapfirstimpressions.com for the video Angel or Devil: First Impression.)
Minutes later in your new office, this same woman stands in front of you and the other new employees and introduces herself as one of your new managers. Would you be impressed by her beautiful smile, confident gestures, and high-energy presentation? No way! In your first encounter with her, your gut said, “Inconsiderate and selfish.” In your future interactions with her, you would find yourself looking for information to back up this snap.
The Bad Day Blues
Because of my work, I have been in airports and on planes almost every week for years. I have always observed that the world is full of kind and openhearted people. I’ve been a real Pollyanna.
But recently I fell off a small cliff and shattered my wrist. Shortly after surgery, wearing a bright blue cast, I traveled a distance to give a speech. In the airport security line, a guy behind me was pushing plastic bins around. One of those bins held my jacket, which fell to the floor. I had to struggle to pick it up with one hand — and received no help from Pushy Guy.
When I got on the airport train that carried passengers to the gates where we would board our flights, a teenage girl stared at me blankly. She refused to move so that I could get to a seat, and so, as the train moved, I fell to the floor. From there I looked up at the teenager’s father. He said, “You should have held on to a post!” I was stunned.
This Pollyanna continued to find inconsiderate people that day — on the escalator and on the flight. I wondered, “Are people just getting ruder? What is the world coming to?” In fact, my impressions were colored by what neuroscientist Daniel Amen calls “emotional shading.”9 When your deep limbic system shifts into overdrive, you perceive neutral events through a negative filter. My starting from a bad place (I was in pain and worried about traveling with a cast) colored my impressions. All of us experience this, whether we are on the instigating or receiving end.
Is Your Mood Creating Bad Impressions?
Each time you get a negative first impression of someone, stop for a moment and reflect. If he seems rude or angry, cold or disconnected, ask yourself whether your mood that day is affecting your impression. Then take action to change your mood and theirs!
What You Can Learn to Change an Impression and Read Others
An enormous amount of research goes into nonverbal cues, and the studies can be fascinating. But how we act upon first impressions isn’t just theoretical; it’s wisdom you can — and should — put to use every day. Consider:
• You want to create affinity with a new customer or manager, so as you sit across the table from her, you smile as you begin talking. What else can you do nonverbally to ensure