{"id":280,"date":"2005-01-09T16:25:48","date_gmt":"2005-01-10T00:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/?p=280"},"modified":"2010-03-22T13:54:04","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T21:54:04","slug":"making-an-impression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/2005\/01\/09\/making-an-impression\/","title":{"rendered":"Making an impression"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"feature_text\"><strong>You can&#8217;t overestimate the value of a good first impression, says OSU psychology professor Frank Bernieri.<\/strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/\/Users\/videomac\/Desktop\/Bernieri_p2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_279\" class=\"wp-caption thumbnail alignright\" style=\"width: 228px;\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-279\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/files\/2010\/03\/Bernieri_p2.jpg\" alt=\"Frank Bernieri is professor of Psychology at OSU\" width=\"228\" height=\"182\" \/>\n    <figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Frank Bernieri is professor of Psychology at OSU<\/figcaption>\n    <\/figure>\n<p>Can you overcome a bad first impression and gain someone&#8217;s trust?<\/p>\n<p>Not likely, says Frank Bernieri, chair of Oregon State University&#8217;s Department of Psychology.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First impressions are liking planting a seed,&#8221; Bernieri says. &#8220;When you shake someone&#8217;s hand, you immediately make a judgment. Was it a good handshake? Was the person well-groomed? Are they attractive? Everything that happens after that point is anchored to that first impression and skews what we learn and perceive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several years ago Bernieri worked with Dateline on a project involving an Ohio employment agency&#8217;s in-depth interviews with candidates for a technical position. The agency provided personality profiles, questionnaires, and reams of background on the candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Bernieri then had several focus groups analyze five seconds of video of the opening handshake and correctly pick out the successful candidate. It&#8217;s a scenario that repeats itself time after time, he says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People are amazed when they see the research. They find out how biased and inefficient our social analytical skills are, and there just isn&#8217;t much we can do about it.&#8221; What happens is that people tend to filter out information that doesn&#8217;t back up their first impression, or they skew the data to make it fit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we hand out a teaching evaluation form on the first day of class&#8211;right after the syllabus&#8211;invariably students will fill it out almost the same as they will on the final day of class,&#8221; Bernieri says. &#8220;All that they experience during the term won&#8217;t change the evaluation they made based on the syllabus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to appearing in numerous scientific journals, Bernieri&#8217;s research has been featured on the Discovery Channel, in the Science Times, Redbook, Self, the London Evening Standard, and even in a book by noted columnist E. Jean Carroll.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/cla\/psychology\/bernieri\">Frank Bernieri&#8217;s home page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/ua\/ncs\/archives\/2004\/jun\/osu-profs-summer-class-cast-new-light-first-impressions\">Bernieri students looked at first impressions last summer<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/ua\/ncs\/archives\/2005\/jan\/new-study-lovers-no-good-spotting-cupids-arrow-others\">Bernieri&#8217;s research on identifying people in love<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can&#8217;t overestimate the value of a good first impression, says OSU psychology professor Frank Bernieri. Can you overcome a bad first impression and gain someone&#8217;s trust? Not likely, says Frank Bernieri, chair of Oregon State University&#8217;s Department of Psychology. &#8220;First impressions are liking planting a seed,&#8221; Bernieri says. &#8220;When you shake someone&#8217;s hand, you&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/2005\/01\/09\/making-an-impression\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,564],"tags":[1733,1754],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-osu-people-and-programs","category-social-science","tag-healthy-people","tag-liberal-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}