First impression: Is it important?

Open Cafe Rzeszow 12.06.2019
By: Yaryna Kysil

On Wednesday, June 12th another Open Café was held in Rzeszów at Biuro Wystaw Arystycznych. This time we talked about impressions and assumptions people can make about each other, made group discussions and let participants get to know each other better.

We started our session with a “First impression” activity, where participants were given  sheet of papers to stick on their back, then they moved around and chatted with others, and wrote their opinions about each person on the sheets of paper. It was funny to read the comments afterwards, because some participants agreed on being categorized as “confident” or “shy” and some didn’t. That meant that the first impressions people can make is not always how it is in reality. We also discovered that all of us gave only positive impressions directly to each other, and no one gave negative ones.

The next activity was based on impressions we make when we completely don’t know a person. Participants were given photos of certain people and tried to guess their personalities. After they had discussed the photos in small groups, they shared their assumptions out loud. After that we revealed who were these people in real life. The fact was that all groups had different thoughts and only a small percentage of answers were correct.

In the end, we agreed that first impressions are really important even if they are not always true. So, we tried to sum up our knowledge in a  big circle by people sharing their own experience and thoughts. Some of them even shared tips and tricks how to make a good impression on your employer at a job interview, for example.