How do I reply to this person on the discussion board?
Good Afternoon Professor and Fellow Classmates,
The primacy effect (first impression is the only impression) is the most common and/or understood perception in today’s world. In fact, interview skill courses over emphasize this cognitive distortion and drill in the fact that first impressions can make or break us in an interview. On a social level, first impressions hold a lot of weight but it has been my experience that, at least socially, first impressions can change over time, with comments similar to, “yes she was nice but, or wow, he seemed so isolated, maybe he just had a bad day”. All of us know the old say that, “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover”, however, in my opinion that 6th sense that God gave us called intuition almost never fails.
Since the primacy effect is so common, I want to link two experiences I had (ironically one yesterday and one today) with the perception bias of “overgeneralizing” and the “confirmation bias”.
Roughly two years ago, a Hispanic family purchased the two family house literally next door to the basement rental where I live. My communication with them overall has been minimal, honestly I don’t even think they know my name, I sure don’t know theirs’ (well at least not all of them). The household in total has 6 kids (including the little girl that lives in their basement rental) who are fascinated with baby Charlie (my chiwawa/pug mix). I attribute their fascination to the fact that baby Charlie is very small and not intimating versus Hanz’s size (pure breed German Shepard) and Amadeus’ size (Basset Hound/Lab mix). Yesterday while walking baby Charlie all the kids gathered around me to pet him. I of course engaged in conversation with them as I usually do and was stunned to hear what one of the little girls said. Out of the blue she told me verbatim, “You have no education, you live in a basement”. I then replied and said, What will make you think that”? She then said, “That’s what my mother said”. I must admit that my heart dropped and sadness kicked in! I counldn’tbelieve this 4 year old was saying such a thing. I of course, didn’t say anything and just carried on. When I got home I was devastated and brain stormed how I could approach her mom without being disrespectful but I realized it wasn’t the time to think about it as I was very upset. Then this morning while walking baby Charlie, I saw the mom and just waived hi and kept on. I realized it wasn’t worth it. First of all, they aren’t important and second of all I don’t want enemies as neighbors. The moral to this story is the the “mom” overgeneralized” my living situation without knowing one thing about my personal life. To each it’s own but if I kept her at an arms length before now I will keep her at at a body’s length.
A beautiful Liberian (Sub-Sahara Africa) girl got discharged at the Psych Ward today. She had been there for about 3 weeks (it’s not a long term psych ward, max time is 6 weeks) and I was very happy to see her leave. I had become friendly with her as I am with the other patients. The director has given me permission to interact with them freely (an aspect of that job that I love) and I surely do. I even give them history lesson (smile). Before she left, I made sure to say bye to her and I told her that she had a beautiful face and wonderful skin and that I wished I had that face. To my dismay, her reply, “But I’m black”. My response, “Black is beautiful”. The Liberian patient was seeking confirmation to her bias. I’m so glad I read the chapter and knew how to deal with it.
I have learned that we form perceptions from our outer world and our inner world. Learning how to control perceptions is key to a healthy society.
