Can You Reset a Negative First Impression?

by Monica Joshi

Ever wondered why even if a person is not convicted of the crime we still seem to have a lingering feeling of disdain for them? It might partially be because of our opinions on the failings of our legal system to nail the perpetrator, but the other, a recent study found, might be due to our implicit negative attitudes towards someone once a bad first impression has been formed.

The study from Cornell University suggests that the only way to get someone to change their prior ill-opinion of you is to help them see the initial actions in a positive light. Research Thomas Mann and Melissa Ferguson asked participants to judge Francis West, a man invading their neighbors homes and stealing precious things. The account presented 26 screens that paired a mugshot alongside statements that described him throwing water on laptops and stealing valuables. Not surprisingly, participants reacted unfavorably to Francis West.

The second part of the study required participants to react to symbols flashing on the screen. Ones that were shown after a picture of Francis were given a more negative response than ones shown without a rapid flashing of Francis. This showed that participants held a negative implicit bias towards Francis and this bias was the hardest to shift. Even if participants were then told that they "got the wrong man", or that "he wasn't the man in the picture", or that "he's actually a really nice person", it didn't change their opinion about Francis. Even hearing that Francis saved a baby from being crushed by a train didn't do it. Hence, researchers concluded that it would take a whole lot of good news to change the implicit negative bias.

If, however, participants were given a way to see the initial event in a new light, by say telling them that Francis was actually saving children, who were the precious things, and throwing water on the laptop because there was a house fire, then both the implicit and the explicit attitudes of the participants shifted from negative to positive. However, if the same experiment was done while participants had to keep an 8-digit number in mind, then their explicit bias turned positive, but their implicit bias remained negative. In addition to having a lot of good news bombarded on the participants, they would also, therefore, need to see the initial event in a positive way while consciously processing the new information to be able to change their implicit and explicit negative bias to a positive one.

The study shows that our lack of understanding the motivations behind a person's action shape our implicit bias towards a person, but it can be changed. Instead of focusing on the first impressions, reasoned thinking can help transform and educate even our most unconscious accounts of the people around us. The way to truly understand each other and not form a rash judgement would be to take the evidence into consideration, all of it, and make sense of others' actions. Studies, however, in the past have shown that not everyone cares to change their first impressions. In cases where you only have one chance of impressing a potential boss, a coworker, or a date, it is better to play in safe and not bank on having that second chance.