How snap judgments form and persist in everyday interactions

¶ … Personality

Snap Judgements. (174)

Sometimes one of the more troubling characteristics about the reality of human nature is that we often remember the worst things and gloss over the good things about others. This can apply to situations as well, but is certainly at the heart of inappropriate snap judgements when it comes to evaluating another human being. There is an old axiom that one is only as good as their last mistake, meaning that the one hundred possible good deeds done before had are wiped out with one single faux pax. However, that being said, snap judgements are part of an evolutionary characteristic to react to a perceived danger and in that case an appropriate response of fight or flight is undertaken. Now in our more civilized society we tend to use the inherent characteristic to form quick and often erroneous opinions about someone.

So for an experiment I was trying to see how often this snap judgement comes up within the course of a day. So I set out in the morning to see if I was making these with everyone I saw or was it just the people that I spent more time noticing. Turns out it was everyone that I came into contact with in any way shape or form, and I did not even have to really see them to make a judgment upon them. For instance as I was heading to school I was taking a turn I always make when someone just zoomed past me and I had to put on my brakes to avoid them. Naturally they became the devil incarnate yet I did not even know if they were a male or a female driver, they may have even been a nun or a priest or a rabbi for all I knew. They also could have been heading to a hospital or had some emergency. But none of those more altruistic motives came into my head. This lead me to believe that snap judgements are often more tied to emotional states than rational thoughts. The rest of the day I realized that anyone that came into my view I was making some kind of judgement about. Either the object of my attention was pleasing to look at or not, I quickly judged them to be annoyed or happy, or whether they had a lot of money or were broke, as well as if they were really full of themselves or did not care what they looked like and on. I was really surprised that many of these happen so fast that I was not previously aware of them until I stopped to listen to myself.

However, what is the difference between what is a snap judgment and what is a first impression? There is also the idiom that you never have a second chance to make a first impression. This implies that once received by the interviewer, potential mate, and so on the first impression sticks and is often difficult to shake owing to that primal instinct to snap judgment. This can also work in reverse. Someone may be able to give a great first impression and yet on follow up involvement it is found that they do not always stack up to their initial assessment. This has happened occasionally when I have met someone I was to work with and they chat me up and seem to be a great person and know a lot about what project we are to be involved with and so on. I am left with the impression that they are going to share an equal load of the responsibility and so on. In actual practice I have found that sometimes they are a no show at meetings and have often missed their deadlines and I am left holding the bag.

So it seems that while snap judgments and first impression are inevitable when dealing with human beings, the other idiom to live by is to not always judge a book by its cover. While these quick opinions are certainly valuable I have found that to reserve judgment based on longer performance is always best and not to base and entire relationship based on a single moment experience with a person. While my experiment proved that I make those kinds of judgments all the time it was also with people I had never met. What if I had come across them again? I am sure that I would have a hard time shaking those impressions at first.

Chapter 7: Types of Non-verbal Communication (208-216)

Sorry to be stuck on idioms but sometimes they are germane. In this case the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words is certainly appropriate. Non-verbal communication can certainly convey in a moments glance and entire vociferous speech. One of the vagaries of communication now is the often misinterpretation of written words formats such as e-mails where one cannot see or even hear the sender to ascertain whether or not they may be serious or joking. This has played havoc with many a communication and shows what happens when words quickly chosen are not followed by the speaker's non-verbal cues. In a sense this is the depersonalization that the computer age has spawned. Although we now use "emoticons" such as smiley or frowney faces to display emotions, there is nothing like the personal touch when it comes to conveying meaning.

Gestures as well as vocal intonations (paralanguage) are powerful tools that we often do not realize we are using when talking to people. This is important since that unconscious behavior in non-verbal communication can also reveal a great deal to the trained observer. For instance the use of personal space (Proximetrics) can be very revealing as to the nature of the relationship between people. In public, very close proximations, touching, hugging, kissing is reserved for those who we feel, not surprisingly, closest to such as significant others, family member (in varying degrees) and so on. Friends are slightly more distant, yet sometimes within the 4-inch boundary, just not for as prolonged a time. Casual social conversation with stranger is usually fluctuates within and without the boundary level depending how relaxed the two people are with each other. Then the public distance where the possibility of touching is not entertained. Some people aver very standoff-ish and may maintain larger boundaries and some more touchy feely and maintain lower boundaries. These are also culturally subjective as is all non-verbal communication.

One non-verbal cue that I have great respect for in telling whether or not another person is interested in what I am saying or interested in me in general is eye contact. When I am talking and see that the other person is looking at their shoes or even worse, their watch, I know that it is time to cut it short. This is the same in a social gathering or when I have done public speaking. It is an excellent clue for interest level. On the other hand I have often had to use this as a tool when being interviewed for a job or internship. There have been occasions where I know my mind may have wandered, but I remember to make eye contact as much as possible during the exchange. More often than not I am usually successful at the interview phase using just this one technique. However, it can be inappropriate if it is too prolonged and can often be misinterpreted in other ways as well. Mutual gaze is one way when eye contact with someone can go either way, depending on the situation. A steady unblinking gaze turns into a staring contest and can often create hostile feeling in the other party. According to the chapter direct eye contact can be ant-social in certain cultures, such as in Mexico, Latin America and Japan. In fact it is a direct insult. This has to be remembered when dealing with people from that culture and that averting their eyes is a sign of respect and no lack of attention.

While the study in the chapter shows that there are six distinct facial expressions I would venture to guess that these are not as universal as one would believe. As shown in the example above, culture can play a significant influence on those expressions. That being said I would agree that there is some universality in smiling and laughter, and in crying and sadness. But I have been in situations where the other person was smiling all the way through a vicious personal attack on my performance while giving the impression she was trying to help me. So there can certainly be mixed messages in any of these non-verbal communication, especially if one has practiced them like an actor using an array of tools to convey the emotion of feeling they want you to have.

Regarding paralanguage I have noticed one aspect in myself that I have yet been able to control. This occurs especially when I am nervous, such as in public speaking, if I feel as if the audience or listen is bored I will tend to talk much faster. I often run over my words and they start coming out so fast they seem to not be waiting for the thought behind them and I can get lost in my speech. I will often write the direction "pause" into a lecture in order to remind me to do so and slow down. So I am often not sure if it is my delivery that is boring the audience or the content.

Chapter 8: Friendship (250-252)

In times of need and in times or happiness, one is able to share these experiences with a friend. I know when I am feeling especially stressed out or feel that things are not going well I can usually count on my friends to bring me out of it, either directly by encouraging me to press on, or indirectly by taking my mind off the situation at hand. Sometimes there is no way t go forward, as in the case when you break up with someone. Friends can help relive the tension by simply being there and listening or taking you out to forget about things for a while.

For me, friends play a vital role in many aspects of my life as I am sure they do in many other people's lives. Friendships are made in many ways and have many differing degrees at times. There are those you work with that you may consider friends, yet they may not be those that you hang out with very often and, unless you have created a deeper bond with individuals at work, certainly not the ones that you can confide everything in. This is especially true if you do not like your job and complain about it to the wrong person.

While I have met several new friends as I went to different schools, the ones that seem to have the strongest bond are the friends I made as a child growing up. It seems that I had just spent so much time with them and shared many early secrets and ideas and dreams with them that their bond with me is unshakable. There are times when I do not see them for long periods, yet when we get back together it is as if not time has passed at all. This is also true to people that have come to mean a great deal to me going to school now.

Friendships seem to, by their very nature, have to develop over a certain period of time. There has to be some history, some sharing of experiences of ideas, some similarity of likes and dislikes in some sense in order for a friendship to first begin to develop. There is a bond that begins to develop; it is something like meeting someone for the first time and feeling some connection, something that interests you to find out more about the person. However, sometimes, as in my childhood friends, it is often just a matter of circumstance. Living near each other, playing in the same parks, participating in the same sports creates an almost accidental bond that arises out of a location in time and space more than anything else.

Being able to share events, both happy an sad, with a friend helps to put those evetns in perspective. Writing in a journal has a similar characteristic in that you relive the event and in the remembering and transmitting of it, it can become more real, more enjoyable, and I the case of a sad event, more acceptable. In other words it helps me to process the event and in some sense makes it more real and concrete than it would be otherwise. Ideally I would think that choosing a mate or a significant other, while it certainly has many other parameters to consider, needs to be in some sense based on a friendship in order for it to really work and last. If there is not that connection or that bond then any long-term commitment will be tremulous. This brings up the next topic to be discussed.

Chapter 10: Female Roles and Gender Discrimination (320-326)

Gender discrimination and gender bias takes on many forms and many subtle disguises that need to be unmasked in order to eliminate them. While it is certainly possible to recognize when gender discrimination takes place under certain circumstances such as hiring biases, workplace harassment and so on, there are more subtler forms that society in general tends to overlook and often even encourage.

One of the more interesting gender role propensities that both female roles and society's ideas of those roles is the bar chart on pare 325. Here we see a pyramid created by the roles of women in the job market and the types of jobs they are recruited for. At the base and the larges portion of women in the field is in Kindergarten and pre-kindergarten teachers. The nurturing nature of motherhood certainly compels women in general to be good at these kinds of jobs. Is that gender bias or a correct utilization of genetic tendencies? The jury is still out on that. But as we go up the charts we see that the next plentiful roles in the workplace have similar characteristics: Secretaries, Registered Nurses, Food servers, Human Resource Mangers and Psychologist, & post secondary teachers, in descending order of female participation. These are all roles that require nurturing and personal caring to a great extent.

It is interesting to note that at the level of psychologist and post secondary teachers is where men and women seem to have a meeting point and the scale appears to be around 50-50. After that a rather quick drop occurs and the next levels of Physicians, Computer Programmer and lawyers have women participating in 30% of the jobs. It then whittles its way down through CEO's, clergy, law enforcement, rocket scientists, and tractor-trailer drivers. The trend seems skewed in that one would think that clergy would certainly be caring and nurturing, but society in general seems to like their clergy masculine. This is certainly the case with the Catholic Church in particular, but there is an overall sense that being closer to God must have a masculine air to it. The final two are flight engineers and carpenters, tapping out at approximately 3% and 1% respectively. So it would appear on the surface of this array of jobs in question that women begin to fall short when it comes to greater educational skills and decision making adroitness as well as physical dexterity. At some point one can see that this is no longer gender role attribute and becomes gender bias, especially where intelligence and level of education is concerned.

There is certainly a point to be made that the idea of a glass ceiling as far as the executive management of companies go, certainly exists. CEO's are still predominantly male and while there are some exceptions there is still too much of a gap to assume that the playing filed is fair. There is certainly a great deal of aggression towards females that men tend to exhibit. This comes out most overtly in the cases of rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and so on. This same aggressive tendency may play out in more subtle ways in the workplace and women are either ignored completely or actually disciplined for infract ions that their male counterparts may even be congratulated for. This aggression can probably account for a large percentage of gender bias when it comes to direct relationships between men and women. The gender stereotype that exist for women prevents them from being viewed by males as aggressive when it comes to decision making as this goes against type, so even in a circumstance where a women has successfully managed to compete a project by being assertive and forward thinking, she is often labeled more disparagingly than her male counterpart who may have done a less that perfect job at the same task yet still showed the same signs of leadership skills and assertive qualities.