First Impressions In Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

Encountering new people is a constant happening for everyone. Appearance, gender, posture, and age dictates how people form first impressions. In tenth of a second, someone can elaborate a mental image of someone whom they don’t even know. The more time someone has to judge someone by their first encounter, the more confident that person is in their judgement (Boutin 1). The accuracy of first impressions are underestimated. In the novel, blink By Malcolm Gladwell, various experiments have shown that first impressions matter. “Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we’re faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of my brain” (Gladwell 12). This idea leads into the experiment led by psychologist, Nalini Ambady, to test student’s judgements of their professors. The students were given three second videos of teachers with the sound turned off to determine the ratings of the teacher’s effectiveness. Later, the

Since the beginning of the novel, Lydia was portrayed as an ignorant, boy obsessive teenager. Towards the end of the novel, she makes a poor decision with running away with Mr. Wickham. The audience most likely wasn’t surprised by her decision because she was thought of as a young girl who wanted a man, regardless of his morals. This quote supports the idea that Lydia doesn’t know the importance behind stability and money which supports the audience's first judgement of her, "...but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then, showing her purchases: "Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better”, (Austen