The other morning I was coming back from a business event and I was wearing a suit and tie.
I stopped at a supermarket and as I was walking through the bakery department a customer stopped me and said,” Are you from corporate?” and I said,” No, I’m a Psychologist.”
And she said,” Let me tell you what’s wrong with this bread department!”
She started reciting these complaints that she had about the bread department, and I was reminded of studies that showed that people’s initial impressions of someone, even after a few seconds, tend to linger for longer periods of time, they tend to maintain those initial impressions. She was convinced I was from corporate and nothing that I said was going to change her mind about that.
What’s interesting about those studies is it shows that the initial Impressions linger but that doesn’t mean that the initial impressions are correct. It brought back to mind for me the idea that you should trust your initial impressions because your intuition and your instincts are there for a reason, they’re telling you something.
At the same time, you want to take the time to get to know someone because they just might be a little different later than you initially thought.