Well, I am not you, but I would consider that example answer to be entirely useless. It effectively says that people stick to initial impressions until they don’t and, oh, there are exceptions. “Certain time” can be five seconds or five years. And what would be practical implications? That first impressions matter? We already know that.
And that, of course, before considering that various groups and subcultures are likely to have different norms in this respect.
Maybe it’s worth shortcutting to a more-terminal goal? Are you looking to be liked? Do you want to control a relationship? Are you trying to forecast which relationships are likely to remain stable and which are not?
Of course the answer is exceedingly vague, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to track their experience in such a fashion as to give actual numbers. Though examples with months would of course be nice, but in any case, it would still be informative. It would tell me that the judgmental ones that immediately flip their judgments are particular exceptional individuals and that this is not normal; it would also tell me that it’s the identity of individuals that explains the variation, while individuals don’t change their behavior constantly (i.e. if you’ve seen someone be tolerant with others, you can expect them to be tolerant with you). It would tell me that you wouldn’t need to worry about isolated incidents a few weeks or months apart, especially with parties of the same gender.
What I know of first impressions is mostly how rich they are. I’m asking about their resilience. Maybe there is something well-known here that I’m simply unaware of and that you consider obvious.
And that, of course, before considering that various groups and subcultures are likely to have different norms in this respect.
Which is why the answer included “that-and-that demographic”… To be honest, though, I’m not sure that I would actually expect that much variation between groups/subcultures.
Maybe it’s worth shortcutting to a more-terminal goal? Are you looking to be liked? Do you want to control a relationship? Are you trying to forecast which relationships are likely to remain stable and which are not?
Good point. It’s essentially the last one. This feeling I have of not knowing what’s going on and what’s normal is a source of anxiety to me (not in the clinical sense of social anxiety, but it makes me worry). Right now, I have some relationships with such low signal-to-noise ratios that I can really only operate on priors about, broadly speaking, humanity in general. (Discarding these relationships in favour of less bothersome one’s isn’t an option for various reasons.)
Maybe there is something well-known here that I’m simply unaware of and that you consider obvious.
I think I’m coming from the position that once you have information about a specific person and a specific relationship, general priors are pretty much useless.
To give a simple example, women are, on the average, shorter than men and that would be my prior about the height of someone before seeing her. But once I see her, the prior is completely superseded by the concrete information that I now have.
In the same way when evaluating whether someone specific is likely to change his/her opinion of me, I will rely almost completely on my knowledge of that particular person and not on generic priors.
This feeling I have of not knowing what’s going on and what’s normal is a source of anxiety to me
Well… I wouldn’t worry too much about what’s “normal”, though I’ll point out that e.g. the mainstream picture of women paints them as very emotionally labile in sexually-charged situation.
You might also consider that you are being played games with. Might be for control (to keep you off-balance) or might be just for fun—some people like drama.
Well, maybe the only wisdom to be had here is really that if you don’t have much more than priors to go on, tough luck, nothing you can do, live with the uncertainty and hope for the best (because actively asking for evidence is too costly). It’s likely that this this doesn’t bother you as much as me because you’re just better at reading social cues; however the hell one is supposed to learn that, especially if one is an introvert and experiences a consequent poverty of stimulus.
Although sometimes it’s not even about observing clues. For example, one might know that it’s likely that one will at some point behave in some way that the other person would view unfavorably; and you want to estimate how much you should invest in this relationship. Then the only relevant evidence you can get is how this person behaves in dealing with other people.
Well, I am not you, but I would consider that example answer to be entirely useless. It effectively says that people stick to initial impressions until they don’t and, oh, there are exceptions. “Certain time” can be five seconds or five years. And what would be practical implications? That first impressions matter? We already know that.
And that, of course, before considering that various groups and subcultures are likely to have different norms in this respect.
Maybe it’s worth shortcutting to a more-terminal goal? Are you looking to be liked? Do you want to control a relationship? Are you trying to forecast which relationships are likely to remain stable and which are not?
Of course the answer is exceedingly vague, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to track their experience in such a fashion as to give actual numbers. Though examples with months would of course be nice, but in any case, it would still be informative. It would tell me that the judgmental ones that immediately flip their judgments are particular exceptional individuals and that this is not normal; it would also tell me that it’s the identity of individuals that explains the variation, while individuals don’t change their behavior constantly (i.e. if you’ve seen someone be tolerant with others, you can expect them to be tolerant with you). It would tell me that you wouldn’t need to worry about isolated incidents a few weeks or months apart, especially with parties of the same gender.
What I know of first impressions is mostly how rich they are. I’m asking about their resilience. Maybe there is something well-known here that I’m simply unaware of and that you consider obvious.
Which is why the answer included “that-and-that demographic”… To be honest, though, I’m not sure that I would actually expect that much variation between groups/subcultures.
Good point. It’s essentially the last one. This feeling I have of not knowing what’s going on and what’s normal is a source of anxiety to me (not in the clinical sense of social anxiety, but it makes me worry). Right now, I have some relationships with such low signal-to-noise ratios that I can really only operate on priors about, broadly speaking, humanity in general. (Discarding these relationships in favour of less bothersome one’s isn’t an option for various reasons.)
I think I’m coming from the position that once you have information about a specific person and a specific relationship, general priors are pretty much useless.
To give a simple example, women are, on the average, shorter than men and that would be my prior about the height of someone before seeing her. But once I see her, the prior is completely superseded by the concrete information that I now have.
In the same way when evaluating whether someone specific is likely to change his/her opinion of me, I will rely almost completely on my knowledge of that particular person and not on generic priors.
Well… I wouldn’t worry too much about what’s “normal”, though I’ll point out that e.g. the mainstream picture of women paints them as very emotionally labile in sexually-charged situation.
You might also consider that you are being played games with. Might be for control (to keep you off-balance) or might be just for fun—some people like drama.
Well, maybe the only wisdom to be had here is really that if you don’t have much more than priors to go on, tough luck, nothing you can do, live with the uncertainty and hope for the best (because actively asking for evidence is too costly). It’s likely that this this doesn’t bother you as much as me because you’re just better at reading social cues; however the hell one is supposed to learn that, especially if one is an introvert and experiences a consequent poverty of stimulus.
Although sometimes it’s not even about observing clues. For example, one might know that it’s likely that one will at some point behave in some way that the other person would view unfavorably; and you want to estimate how much you should invest in this relationship. Then the only relevant evidence you can get is how this person behaves in dealing with other people.