How to Get a Second Chance at a First Impression

By Sean Braswell

Fantasy, fiction and film offer characters a variety of ways to undo a poor first impression, from time travel to brainwashing to reliving the same day until you get it right.1. 幻想故事、小說和電影能給主人公提供各種方法來改變?cè)愀獾牡谝挥∠?，比如時(shí)間旅行、洗腦或是重復(fù)同一天，直到主人公滿意為止。undo: 消除。In real life,your options are, shall we say, fewer, when you, say, show up drunk to a first meeting with future in-laws or kick your new neighbor’s Chihuahua the day you move in.2. in-law: 親家；Chihuahua: 吉娃娃狗。Redeeming oneself in the eyes of another is fraught with difficulty, and a broad body of psychological research largely supports the conventional wisdom that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.3. redeem: 挽救，彌補(bǔ)；be fraught with: 充滿……的；conventional wisdom: 傳統(tǒng)觀點(diǎn)。

But there is some good news for all you klutzes and screw-ups.4. klutz: 笨手笨腳的人；screw-up: 把事情搞糟的人。According to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology5. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:《人格與社會(huì)心理學(xué)雜志》。:

One way to redo a first impression is to get someone to see your behavior in a new light.6. 改變第一印象的途徑之一是讓別人刮目相看。redo: 重做；in a new light: 用新的眼光。

“We reasoned that even if it is difficult to stop earlier learning about a person from being spontaneously activated,” says Thomas Mann, co-author with Melissa Ferguson of the Cornell University study, “it might be possible to change what those details mean,” and thus change the reaction that they trigger.7.“我們推測(cè)，即使之前關(guān)于一個(gè)人的認(rèn)識(shí)會(huì)不由自主地浮現(xiàn)，”梅利莎·弗格森在康奈爾大學(xué)研究中的合著人托馬斯·曼說道，“但還是有可能改變這些細(xì)節(jié)的含義，”并借此改變它們引發(fā)的反應(yīng)。spontaneously: 自發(fā)地；activate: 激活；Cornell University: 康奈爾大學(xué)，美國紐約州一所研究型綜合大學(xué)；trigger: 引發(fā)，引起。

Take the case of Oskar Schindler8. Oskar Schindler: 奧斯卡·辛德勒（1908—1974），德國商人，二戰(zhàn)期間保護(hù)了1,200余名猶太人免遭納粹黨的屠殺，他的事跡被改編成小說和電影。. Your initial automatic reaction or “implicit evaluation” upon hearing about a Nazi Party member who used cheap Jewish labor in his factories to aid the German war effort would understandably be negative.9. automatic: 無意識(shí)的，不自覺的；implicit:內(nèi)含的，固有的；evaluation: 評(píng)價(jià)； Nazi Party: 納粹黨。But, if you later learn how he used his position to shield10. shield: 保護(hù)。his workers, your first impression might change. To test this idea, the researchers asked subjects to first read a story about a man who broke into his neighbors’ homes and ransacked11. ransack: 徹底搜索。them. Later, the researchers provided some of the participants with the exculpatory information that he did so because there was a fire and he was searching for children trapped inside.12. exculpatory: 辯白的，洗刷罪名的；trap:受困。That crucial nugget of information—forcing a revision to their understanding of his conduct in that instance—was effective in reversing their implicit evaluations of the man, succeeding where statements about his unrelated good deeds did not.13. nugget: 有用的信息；revision: 修改，校正；reverse: 轉(zhuǎn)變，改變；succeed:繼……之后。

None of us are Oskar Schindlers, of course, and most of our real-life impressions are formed in situations far more complex than the simple,artificial scenarios of the psych lab.14. artificial: 人為的；scenario: （想象中的）情景，局面；psych lab: 心理學(xué)實(shí)驗(yàn)室?！癘ne swallow does not make a summer,” Aiden Gregg, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton, cautions about the finding’s broad applicability, but it does “make it more likely that reinterpretation can change implicit attitudes.”15. One swallow does not make a summer:一燕不成夏，暗指不要以偏概全，對(duì)于剛開始的好現(xiàn)象盲目樂觀；University of Southampton: 南安普頓大學(xué)，一所位于英國的頂尖研究型學(xué)府；caution about: 警告；applicability: 適用性；reinterpretation: 重新解釋。

Mann and his colleagues recognize that there is more work to be done to see if such reversals hold when it comes to our impressions of groups, or to those formed over a longer period of time or on the basis of visual cues, rather than just textual information.16. 曼恩和他的同事認(rèn)識(shí)到，還需要進(jìn)行更多研究來驗(yàn)證這種轉(zhuǎn)變是否有效，比如涉及到對(duì)于群體的印象、長期以來形成的或基于視覺暗示形成的印象，而不只是通過文本信息。reversal: 逆轉(zhuǎn)；hold:有效，適用；cue: 暗示。But with this hope of redemption, we can, as Mann puts it, “attack a false first impression head-on” and address the reasons for it, rather than just asking someone to start over or forget about our missteps.17. redemption: 挽救；head-on: 迎面地，正面地；misstep: 過失。And without time travel or brainwashing at our disposal, in the end that may be our best bet for writing our own Hollywood redemption narrative.18. at one’s disposal: 供……使用；best bet:最好的辦法；narrative: 故事。

第一印象可謂根深蒂固?；蛟S僅僅一面，便決定了他人對(duì)你的態(tài)度。倘若第一印象糟糕，有沒有補(bǔ)救措施呢？最近有學(xué)者給出了建議：通過改變細(xì)節(jié)，讓別人對(duì)你產(chǎn)生新的認(rèn)識(shí)。舉例而言，當(dāng)你聽說辛德勒是使用廉價(jià)猶太勞動(dòng)力的納粹分子時(shí)，立刻對(duì)他產(chǎn)生了壞印象；但接下來聽說他利用這一身份拯救了許多猶太人時(shí)，印象就徹底改變了。既然還有補(bǔ)救措施，那就大膽迎擊糟糕的第一印象吧！