Unit 1, listening 1, activities A and D. First impressions don't tell the whole story. Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me here today. As promised, I'm going to talk about how we form first impressions and how they work. We all form impressions of other people every day. So picture this. You're waiting in line at your favorite coffee shop. The line is long, but it's moving quickly. The person in front of you in line is complaining about the wait. He's loud and rude. He makes comments about the service and the employees. When he finally gets to the counter, he yells at the person who takes his order. You assume, this is not a nice person, and you hope you never meet him again. From this short encounter, you have formed an impression of this person. You were with him only briefly, but you may think you know a lot about him. One mistake people often make in forming first impressions is to think that a small example of someone's behavior can give us a complete picture of the person. If you see a friendly, smiling young woman taking your order at the coffee shop, you may think she is friendly and smiling all of the time. In addition to thinking she is always friendly, you may also think she has other positive traits. This is the second error people often make. Because she is friendly, you assume that she is also intelligent, happy, and good to her parents. Of course, the opposite is also true. The rude customer in front of you in the coffee line did not make a good impression on you. You saw an example of his poor behavior, his rudeness, and you assumed he had other negative traits. You thought, this is not a nice person. Okay, so if our first impression of someone is positive, we think the person is always that way, and we think that all of her traits are positive. We think that small sample of behavior shows us her true personality. But we don't think that way about our own behavior. Let me explain what I mean. When we see someone else acting in a negative way, we think it is because he is a negative person. But when we act in a negative way, we say it is because of the situation. Let's go back to the coffee shop again. If I am rude to the person taking my coffee order, I will find reasons for my bad behavior. The service is too slow, my mother is very sick, or my boss just yelled at me. In other words, when I act badly, I think it's because of the situation, not because I'm a bad person. But if another customer is rude, I don't look for reasons. I think it is his personality. In other words, he acted badly because he is not a nice person. First impressions can tell us a lot. They help us make sense of new information and form relationships with new people. But as you can see, we can make errors, so sometimes we need to take a second look.