Your First Impression

You know the saying, you never get a second chance to make a first impression? Is that true or false? I guess the most accurate answer would be, “It depends,” right? A definite maybe. I mean, ultimately, whether you get a second chance to make a first impression depends on how you see the world. Albert Ellis would call it your philosophy and Aaron Beck would call it your belief.

I mean, technically, in the most literal sense, it's true. A first impression, by definition, happens the first time. The second time would, of course, be a second impression. But, it is true in a more general sense? In order to answer that question we need to consider the meaning of the statement. Because the statement wasn't meant to be a tautology. It was meant to make a point. It was meant to emphasize the importance of first impressions. And so the statement is true, if you sell first impressions.

The statement was part of an advertising campaign for Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo back in the 1980's. And today, legions of mindless people march around repeating the statement, with pride, as if it were scripture. Please understand, there are a whole lot of smart people working at Procter & Gamble. In the case of Heads & Shoulders, they successfully created a social taboo out of dandruff. As hard as it may be to accept, the fact of the matter is, dandruff is completely natural. But with messaging like, “Tis the season for the flakes that don't melt,” it's no wonder we all hate dandruff.

The human brain is wired to believe what it sees. An excellent example is known as The McGurk Effect. If you don't know what that is I encourage you to Google it. There's a great video by the BBC on YouTube. At any rate, as most of us know, people are very superficial. This isn't just the result of cultural influences. As the McGurk effect demonstrates, superficiality is hard-wired into our brains. But cultural messaging can amplify the situation, which is exactly what P&G wants to do.

Anyways, back to the statement in question. I say it is largely false for the exact reason that it overemphasizes the importance of first impressions. If you're only going to get one interaction then, yes, you only get one chance. An example where this might be the case is a college application. Although, you can always reapply. Even to college. As a matter of fact, I sat here and thought about it for a while and I can't think of any situation where you would necessarily be limited to only one shot. The statement totally downplays the role of persistence. It suggests that life is some sort of crap-shoot. That life is a lottery. And that's a proposition I reject outright.

A lot of really interesting things have been coming out of the lab of Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania. Duckworth has coined the term "grit" to describe the psychological state of, "passion and perseverance for long-term goals." I will elaborate on the topic in later posts. But for now let me tell you she's finding that grit is more important than talent when it comes to achievement. Now, the word achievement sounds rather lofty. We could just as easily use the more colloquial phrases, "accomplishing things," or, "gettin' stuff done." However you want to think of it, it has very little to do with first impressions. More on this later.

So, to be more accurate, the full statement should really be, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression, if you're a quitter.” But I guess that wouldn't sell much shampoo now, would it?