When discussing any social topics, one of the main things many people can agree on is the importance of a first impression whenever you meet someone new. It is often said that a first impression is what most people consider in how the other person feels about you. However, there are still many theories on how these impressions are actually formed in full.
Algebraic models
Some of the earlier models are quite mathematical, suggesting that a person combines different traits they see, resulting in a sum which defines whether they like the person or not. There are 3 types of ways of calculating an impression within the algebraic models, that being the summative method, averaging method, and the weighted averaging method
The summative model suggests that when you meet someone for the first time, you gain a lot of information about who they are, what they’re like and their preferences. In this, there may be a lot of positive traits and negative traits. In the summative method, people would subconciously take in all of this information, and put a score on each of the traits. For example, a person you meet may be energetic and kind…. but doesn’t have the cleanest manners and evidently doesn’t take good care of their hair. The summative theory suggests that you add up all of these traits’ ‘scores’ to reach a conclusion. In this case, Being energetic would be worth 5 points, being kind 7 points, but not having such great manners would -4 points, and them not taking good care of their may be -2 points. Then these scores are added to make a grand total of 6 points. In this case, they are decently well liked from the first impression. Of course, this method simplifies the process a lot.
The averaging model attempts to take the summative model, and make it slightly more realistic. It suggests the same thing as the summative model, but that the brain naturally finds the middle ground behind all of the traits much more easily. The averaging suggests that the same process occurrs, but the traits’ scores are simply average rather than added together.
The weighted averaging model suggests that things aren’t so simple. It suggests that in different scenarios, different traits will have different scores. So in this case, scores are not the only thing. A person who values a person’s energy very highly may not considering as strong a trait if they meet someone at a funeral. Similarly, someone who doesn’t like people who look unclean may not care so much if they meet someone while walking in a forest. The average is weighted differently based on the context of each situation, and the ‘scores’ are altered according accordingly. This model is much more flexible in the explanation of impression formation, as it is true that context makes a difference in certain situations
All of the different methods of algebraic impression formation build off each other, resulting in the weighted averaging system, which combines context cues as well as a person’s personal preferences to explain how people form impression. Despite this, all of this would have to happen subconsciously, as I’m pretty sure no one starts running math calculations when they talk to people for the first time. The process of impression formation is highly automatic, even second nature to people.
Asch’s Model
In Asch’s model, he proposed something slightly different to the algebraic models. Rather than focusing on a mathematical way of going about things, he thought that different traits could be split into central and peripheral traits. Central and peripheral traits change depending on context, and the idea is that central traits are almost the entire basis for an impression to be made. He suggested that if even one of the central traits were to be changed, an entire impression could flip. In one of the algebraic models, this wouldn’t be possible, as mathematically impression would stay relatively similar if one trait were to be changed.
Asch conducted some research in 1946 on this topic. In this research he gave a list of words to two groups of participants. To one group he gave the words intelligent, skillful, industrious, cold, determined, practical, cautious. To the other group he gave the words, intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, and cautious. He then asked the participants whether they thought the person described with those words was generous or not. There was a large difference between whether people thought the person was generous, despite there only being one word different in the lists, that being between cold & warm. If people did conduct their impressions algebraically, the difference would not be so big, as it is a one-word difference after all. However, because of the prompt, that being the context, people were swayed by the word that linked closest to the person being generous.
In another case where Asch changed the word ‘warm’ to ‘polite’ and the word ‘cold’ to ‘blunt’. In this case, the participants did not think the person who was more polite we more generous, or the other way around. When the people shown this condition were asked who was more good-natured, there was once again a difference, due to the words ‘polite’ and ‘blunt’ linking more closely to this impression. In some cases words were seen as central, and in other peripheral.
This model argues that impressions can change based on even just one trait, and that an impression depends heavily on the context of a situation and what a person is specifically focusing on.