Some psychologists believe that it's neither first nor last impressions but "weighted averaging" that counts: we assimilate all the information we have about a person, and then produce an average.
Negative information is given slightly more weight than positive information, and a negative first impression is slightly more difficult to change than a positive one. As you weigh up all this research evidence, it's worth remembering three points.
First, you need to remember that many factors play a part in the relative accuracy of a first impression. For example, those who are in a good mood when the encounter takes place are more likely to be accurate than those who are not. Second, all the studies mentioned above used group averages. Groups appear to be accurate at judging first appearances but of course that doesn't mean that all individuals are equally good. Third, the rapport and similarities between the appraiser and the appraisee will affect the accuracy of a first impression — for example, research has shown that people from similar cultures tend to interpret nonverbal cues more successfully than people from very different cultures.
Most of the evidence supports the maxim that first impressions count. The somewhat terrifying exception that proves the rule is the infamous US serial killer Ted Bundy, who, it was claimed, made a favourable first impression on all his victims; the US public also found it hard to reconcile his appearance with that of a serial killer.
So at your next speed dating session, trust to your first impressions — but don't forget Ted Bundy. The word nepotism comes from the Latin nepos, meaning "nephew". It's thought it was first used in the Middle Ages when Catholic popes had illegitimate sons whom they called "nephews" — and to whom they granted special privileges.
Some researchers suggest that nepotism is instinctive and a form of kin selection that is seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
Even worker ants Formica fusca , often held up as paragons of socialism, have been shown to favour their own kin when rearing young in colonies that have several queens. Research suggests that informal personal contacts are often the main channel through which people find out about and secure jobs. This "social connectedness" may be more important than talent or knowledge in the employment market, particularly when employers are looking to fill highly paid positions.
However, it is not the bonds between close friends or family members that are the most important in this area; it is weaker ties, involving less frequent contact, that are of prime significance. The fact that children sometimes follow the professions of their parents is not solely due to name nepotism.
Parents, friends and acquaintances are key agents in "socialisation", which is the process whereby individuals learn the behaviours that society expects of them. Therefore, well-connected parents may influence career choices as much as career chances.
The "old boy" network is another form of nepotism and one that is sometimes considered to exert undue influence in the UK; this usually refers to the links between people who have attended the same private school. Its equivalent in China, guanxi meaning "network of influence" , does not necessarily refer to links through school but describes deep relationships and extremely influential connections at a personal level.
Many Western companies are finding to their cost that the ability to participate in social networks is an essential requirement for doing business in China. If connections are sometimes so important in life, is there any way we can measure how well-connected we are? The psychologist Stanley Milgram investigated the topic of social connectedness, and helped popularise the idea of "six degrees of separation". This is the idea that anyone in the world can be connected to any other person through a chain of contacts that involves no more than four intermediaries.
Milgram tested this by randomly requesting Americans to deliver a postcard to a named person in Massachusetts by sending it only to people they knew on a first-name basis, who they thought might know the target personally or would pass it on to someone else who did; 80 per cent of the cards were delivered in four or fewer steps.
Milgram identified a "funnelling" effect, whereby certain people seemed particularly well connected and were "stars" at passing on cards. This study was repeated more recently using email forwarding, with the result that, on average, six intermediaries were required for the emails to reach their target — so inspiring the phrase "six degrees of separation".
This theory has now passed into the popular imagination, helped by a book by Duncan Watts, , a play by John Guare, and a film adaptation of the play directed by Fred Schepisi, , and by a trivia game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", which requires players to connect any film actor to Kevin Bacon in as few links as possible.
In some ways, the "small world phenomenon" is heartening, since it means that we are all only a few steps away from each other. Next time you meet someone on holiday who hails from a place you once visited, ask them whether they know so-and-so. Don't worry if you don't know the right people yet — you're only a maximum of four contacts away from knowing them all.
So work on every contact, particularly those who are not connected by birth or marriage — and also remember that what you know is still of greater importance than who you know. If there's one thing that annoys me more than watching the England football team fail miserably yet again in a vital penalty shoot-out, it's listening to them afterwards saying that there's no point in practising.
They claim that you can't recreate the pressure of a match in a training session and that penalty shoot-outs are "a lottery". Taking that to its logical conclusion, why practise at all? Other sportspeople have a completely different philosophy. For example, golfers are rarely seen off the practice range.
They know that the more they practise, the better they will be. As Gary Player once said: "The more I practise, the luckier I become" — and he became one of the most successful international golfers ever. Of course, golf is a much more static game than football. The ball is mostly stationary and you are aiming at a static target as in a penalty shoot-out. Golfers strive for consistency — a swing that is perfect every time.
However, researchers at Stanford University believe that humans and other primates are not hard-wired to perform exactly the same movements consistently. When the researchers compared neural and muscle activity, they found that there were subtle variations each time — and they suggest an evolutionary reason for this. Our ancestors may have developed brains with a capacity for improvisation in order to help them cope with the numerous novel situations that they encountered while hunting.
This flexibility makes evolutionary sense but does not help us to accomplish tasks which are best conducted in exactly the same way each time. In these cases, practice will never make perfect, although when you watch Tiger Woods you wonder What sort of practice helps us to acquire new skills? It's no coincidence that top sports performers also have the best coaches — the right kind of practice or coaching is essential.
Learning a skill badly can lead to problems later, and it is much more difficult to "unlearn" a well-practised but poorly acquired skill than it is to learn it correctly in the first place. This is clearly seen in any office where you see people struggling with two-fingered typing. Changing a well-practised motor skill often involves taking a step backwards before any improvement is seen. The presence or absence of spectators evaluating your performance can also affect the performance of a task, no matter how many hours of practice you have put in.
An audience can provide a positive stimulus that helps us to perform a well-practised or an easy task even better. However, when the task is not so well-practised, or is more difficult, it may be unnerving to have others watching — and this may have a detrimental effect on performance. The audience effect seems to exaggerate the dominant response, so if you tend to do well the audience will help you to do better, but if you tend to make mistakes the audience will make errors even more likely.
This "social facilitation" effect explains why highly skilled sportspeople often perform best at big events, whereas the less expert performers perform poorly on important occasions. Practice will never make perfect — in football, golf, reading or anything else. After all, nobody's perfect. However, if you practise well, your performance will improve. Will someone please tell the England football team this before the next World Cup? There can only be one boss in the kitchen of an autocratic chef like Gordon Ramsay.
If too many people add ingredients, comments and expletives, confusion will reign and the quality of the food will suffer. However, the good sense of this proverb applies not only to the kitchen: when too many people become involved in all sorts of endeavours their individual efforts may be counterproductive.
The problems probably lie in the way people reach agreement on a course of action. Psychologists believe that it is possible to predict a final group decision based on the initial views held by the members. There are four social decision-making schemes that determine the group decision. The first of these is the "majority wins" rule, which states simply that most people will opt for whatever position is supported initially by the majority.
Discussion merely serves to strengthen the group majority view. The second decision-making scheme is the "truth wins" rule, which indicates that the correct decision will be made because during the discussion people will come to recognise the strength of that particular argument.
The third scheme is the "two-thirds majority" rule, as is often used by juries; it requires a majority, but not a unanimous decision. One-third of the group may beg to differ, but they have to accept the majority decision. Some groups seem to favour a fourth scheme, the "first shift" rule, where many group members will stick to the first shift of opinion shown by group members.
If you know which set of rules the members of a particular group tend to adopt, then it is possible to predict the outcome of a meeting. Of course, there are numerous other factors that can play a part, including: the level of expertise each member brings to the discussion informational social influence , the extent to which certain group members are respected and liked normative social influence and the nature of the task.
Researchers concluded that the older elephants recalled a drought in the park that lasted from to , and how their packs survived the slim pickings by migrating to lusher areas a distance away. None of the elephants that stayed behind were old enough to remember the previous dry spell. Elephants also apparently recognize and can keep track of the locations of as many as 30 companions at a time, psychologist Richard Byrne of the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland and other researchers discovered during a study at Amboseli.
These elephants are doing it with 30 traveling-mates. But elephants "almost certainly know every [member] in their group. When it comes to smarts, elephants are right up there with dolphins, apes and humans, says WCS cognitive scientist Diana Reiss and colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta. They reported in in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that elephants, like the other mammals in that exclusive circle, are the only animals known to recognize their reflections in a mirror.
Zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants in Nairobi, Kenya, is an authority on pachyderms who has studied them since the s. He recounts becoming so well acquainted with an elephant in Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park early in his career that he could actually walk beside her in the wild.
He left the area in to write his thesis and did not return again for four years. But when he came back, he says, it was as though he'd never left.
Already a subscriber? Are elephants smart? Wonder What's Next? Try It Out Are you ready to have some unforgettable fun? Put your memory to the test when you go online to Play the "Elephants Never Forget! Challenge a friend to play, too. Who has the best memory? Do you like to learn new songs? Practice it a couple of times and then sing it for a family member. What would you really do if you met an elephant?
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Join the Discussion. Grey Apr 5, I'm using this article as a source for a report on elephants. Who should I site as the author? I cannot find a specific name but I'd love to give proper credit where it is due. Apr 16, Hi Grey! Thanks for checking! Quinn Sep 30, Can eliphants eat chocolate if so the side effects will make the eliphants remember a-lot of thing if you know what chocolate can make you remember. Sep 30, Landon Swann Sep 30, Thanks for stopping by, Landon.
Michael John Sep 16, Sep 16, Apr 1, Parislover07 Feb 22, Hunter May 15, Josh Morgan Sep 10, Elephants don't forget there life style but they might forget not so important stuff. Sep 20, May 22, Hi, Hunter! Thanks for the advice! Is Zootopia one of your favorite movies? It is a elephants job to not forget. They always remember stuff to survive. For example,an elephant will remember the enemies attack. They are also really smart too.
There brains are like a human's brain. They can also remember a sound from a month ago. An elephants protection is by using there brain. Feb 9, Nune Jan 9, Does anyone know the study that was done with african elephants and maasai tribe? Jan 22, Oct 26, May 12, Wait, now there are TWO elephants??
Dirt Boi May 9, Hi this is the adventures of Dirt Boi today i'm riding a elephant woohoo ahhhhh oops I fell off ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh meh now flat swosh waaaaa oh no now om on the moon. May 10, Dirt Boi, be safe out there! You keep getting into these scrapes! Jellybob May 9, My favorite elephant at the zoo forgot how to live :.
That is very sad, Jellybob. Apr 20, Apr 6, Mar 31, Re Mar 27, Mar 28, Nathan Mar 27, Mar 27, And maybe toys,. Jay Mar 27, Mar 1, Feb 17, Fun fact! Thanks for sharing that with us, Kristinaz! Happy Friday! Bella Jan 26, Jan 27, Emma : Dec 13, Can you make an article called, "Do elephants have toenails?
Dec 13,
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