The Psychology of First Impressions: How We Judge and Are Judged

 

By Shogbanmu Fathia

Picture meeting someone new and, within the first few moments, deciding they seem arrogant. Perhaps it is something in how they carry themselves, or the way they hold eye contact a beat too long. No words have really been exchanged, yet a judgment has already formed.

It is remarkable how quickly this happens. The brain does not wait for a complete biography before forming an opinion. It works with whatever information is immediately available, turning brief observations into a story about someone we barely know. This process, known as thin-slicing, allows us to draw conclusions from small amounts of information. But speed does not guarantee accuracy.

Now imagine that same person, in conversation, turns out to be warm and easy to talk to, nothing like the impression first formed. One real exchange can begin undoing a judgment that took only seconds to form. Our initial impression can influence how we interpret everything that follows, making it easier to see someone through the lens of the judgment we have already made.

Without that conversation, the first impression could easily have stayed intact. This is where confirmation bias comes in. Once we form an initial opinion, we tend to notice what supports it while overlooking what challenges it. If we never actually talk to the people we judge quickly, we may go on assuming we have them figured out.

In any first meeting, two quiet questions tend to shape how we read a person: can I trust them, and do they seem capable? These judgments are often described through two broad qualities: warmth and competence. A friendly expression may make someone appear approachable, while a steady voice or confident manner may make them seem capable. Yet these signals can be misleading. What reads as arrogance may simply be nerves, or focus, or nothing at all.

This is what makes first impressions both useful and dangerous. We need to make sense of people quickly, but we rarely have enough information to understand them completely. The person we find intimidating may turn out to be kind. The charming stranger may not be as trustworthy as they first appeared.

We cannot switch off the instinct to judge quickly. But we can hold our first impressions a little more loosely, and let them remain a starting point rather than a final verdict.

Ultimately, the goal is not to perform a perfect version of ourselves or to assume we have someone else figured out after a few seconds. It is to recognise that every first impression is built from limited information. A few seconds of judgment can cost us the chance to know someone worth knowing.

A first impression is only ever a first draft.