Custom «Impression Formation» Essay Paper Sample

Impression formation is the first thing that sometimes if not always our brains whenever we meet a new person or even people that we know. We try, using visible cues, to process information about a person’s occupation, hobbies, likes and dislikes, social habits. Usually this is done with varying levels of confidences that is dependent on various parameters.

In the study five people were asked question based on a picture of a known person though unknown to the participants. The participants were asked to give responses about the person’s occupation, hobbies, type of music and their political stands among others.

Most of the answers given were inaccurate but some were a bit close to the correct answer implying that some of the participants were more correct than others. However, all the participants were very confident with their responses and really believed that what they said about the person in the photo.

Since it was a photo that was being used for the study, the respondents used visible cues to make their judgements. The visible cues that they mostly used were dress code, standing pose, the environment that the photo was taken and facial expression. The most commonly used visible cue was the dress code which was in most instances used in telling the person’s occupation. Standing pose was used by three participants to tell whether the person was out going or not. Some used the physical environment and other surroundings to tell about the social life of the person in the photo.

In general, we can say the impression that we form about other people which really determine how we relate with a person, especially new faces differ from one individual from the other. This is because, from the study many of the responses were different form one another.