Forming impressions

Imagine that you have to describe a stranger whom you talked for some 5 min. would you confine your description to just the physical appearance or you would go further and add some of your inferences which may not be correct. It is observed that most of us would go beyond the facts and add something on our own to form impressions.

For most people it is important to analyze their own behavior to form a self-image. It is equally important to understand people around us as they influence our lives to some extent.

We not only observe facts but also color them with our interpretation. Naturally the impressions we form about others are not always accurate. Still we form impressions and alter them as necessary.

This perception of other people depends on many factors such as:

1) Our own personality: Some people are too critical and hence seldom find anything good about others while some people restrain themselves from labeling people.

2) Situational factors: While forming impressions we not only focus on the behavior but we also refer to the situation under which it occurs as behavior can not be interpreted without the reference to the situation.

3) Moods and feelings: Naturally when we are in a good mood everything seems to be nice and so we are more open to input from outside.

4) Chances of the second meeting: When we have more chances of meeting the person we do not base our impression solely on one incident. We have mush more time to alter our impressions though the first impression is somewhat longer lasting.

This process of analyzing and interpreting people is called social cognition. Lot of research has been done to find out how exactly this process of impression formation works. Social psychologists have observed that certain Features are involved in every impression formation.

1) Central traits: When we form impressions about the person some traits carry more weight than others. Asch (1946) called these traits central traits. He presented his subjects with two lists describing the same person. He altered only one trait keeping the rest of them same. One group of subjects was told that the person is "cold" while the other group was told that the person is "warm". Only 10% described the person as humorous and generous when he was labeled as cold. While 90% described him as generous and 75% described him as humorous when they were told that the person is warm

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