Passage II
P1 Studies show that the primacy effect is an important part of first impressions. The primacy effect is the idea that the first impression is very difficult to change. After the first meeting, two people may interact again and learn more about each other, but the early impressions they formed will influence their feelings about each other in the future. For example, if a person has a good first impression of someone, he or she probably will not notice bad things about the person later. However, if that person has a bad first impression, he or she will probably notice mostly bad things in the future.
P2 Another interesting part of first impressions is that people act how others expect them to act. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Research by Snyder and Swann supports this idea (1978). In that study, partners played a game together. The partners did not know one another, so the researchers told each player about his partner. Sometimes they said positive things about a partner. Sometimes they said negative things. The result of the study showed that players acted friendly when they expected their partners to be friendly, but they acted unfriendly when they expected their partners to be unfriendly. The players’ expectations influenced how they acted toward one another.
players