It is said that "You never get a second chance to make a first impression.."
And I strongly disagree on this.. I do believe in second chance..
Since you want to have one..
However, substantial research has affirmed the importance of first impressions while exploring a variety of factors that contribute to their formation. For example, a 2009 study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that factors ranging from clothing style to posture play a role in how impressions are formed (see examples at the table below ). Another study, in the April 2011 issue of Social Influence, found that a limp handshake can make you appear overly passive. (source)
Yeah ok, we understood first impression matters..
It is also known as the "Halo effect"..
The halo effect is a cognitive bias in which an observer's overall impression of a person, company, brand, or product influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that entity's character or properties. It was named by psychologist Edward Thorndike in reference to a person being perceived as having a halo. Subsequent researchers have studied it in relation to attractiveness and its bearing on the judicial and educational systems (source).
We, many times, have seen on the web social experiments on people who change their behavior judging on the race, color, appearance and wealth of a group or a person.
But let's go back where we started.. Can you have a second chance to do a first impression.?
My personal opinion is YES.
First impressions matter but the substance has the final word. We many times have misjudged people on their appearance, art, music or movies based on our mindset the given time.
So, in order to have a second chance for a first impression, there are 2 things that have to change.
Either us or the object/person we are judging.
In the first case, Heraclitus (greek philosopher 535–475 BC) said "everything flows", no man ever steps in the same river twice. Meaning that a constant change is the fundamental essence of the universe. In other words, our judgment is constantly changing toward a constant changing environment and/or our experiences of life. Probably you have noticed that movies or music that we use to hate suddenly become one of our favorites.
These concerns our self. What is the second case.?
The object/person (etc) has to change. Many videos have been released on the web showing homeless people under a full transformation (see photo below). Interesting how the aspect about the same person changes, huh.?
The same rule applies to art, movies, and music. A slight change can lead to tremendous differentiation on feelings and approval, but the substance is the same.
In order to prove that, I created the following video. It is about the 5 times that there was second chance to do a first impression in music (video below).
Many times in life we get disappointed and feel that we are not approved or we lost the one and only chance we had to do a good first impression.
This is totally incorrect. We always have a 2nd chance to do a good first impression.
The only prerequisite is that we want to do it.
As I repeatedly said, the substance is what counts.
All we need is to work on little adjustments that may help us to pass our ideas or work, easily to the targeted audience.. and voila!
You just had your second chance to do a good first impression..