“Your first impressions when you meet someone are always right. ”Do you agree with this statement? Write your essay giving your opinion using examples from your own experience. v.10

It is suggested that initial impressions are always accurate. However, I strongly disagree with this proposition. Firstly, from my observation, people tend to hide away their true nature during the first encounters with strangers. This is possibly due to the feelings of doubts and insecurity associated with having to socialise with unfamiliar individuals. To illustrate, despite my usual free-spirited and light-headed demeanor, when I first got acquainted with my friends, I used to be very meticulous with my choice of words since at the beginning, I still kept my guards up with them. I believe, these polar social behaviors are common among members of society and therefore, first impressions do not always reflect one' s characteristics and should not be treated as the guidelines to do so. Secondly, people are liable to make false judgments on one’s personality traits during their first meeting. The explanation for this statement, as cited in numerous psychological studies, is that people seem to remember negative, highly immoral actions more vividly than positive, moral ones as the former are often less typical and more spontaneous. From my personal experience, for instance, I always seem to associate people with their bad behaviors such as littering or cursing more frequently than with meritorious ones such as helping out a stranger when needed. In this case, I strongly feel that if I decide to infer one’s attributes based on such biased feelings, I will always reach the wrong conclusion. All in all, I take the view that we should not rely on first impressions as they can be influenced by many factors.