Bouba & Kiki
First Impression Mindset
Recently Ranjit, one of my friends, bought two different breeds of puppies. Though they were the same size, the look and feel of them were totally different. One was having a round face with a curvy bodyline. Another one was a bony guy with a lot of spikes. He gave me a privilege of naming his puppies.
I named them Bouba and Kiki. These were the names I learnt just a few days back in a training session. He immediately went and told all his family members regarding the name of the puppies. In fact he also shared this in the social media too. All his friends appreciated him for the right choice of names. Everyone was able to resonate with naming the puppy with a round face as Bouba. In the same manner, they could feel that the name Kiki was aptly chosen for the skinny, spiked puppy. Surprisingly no one could think the other way. How was it possible for people from different backgrounds to think in the same line?
Vilayanur Ramachandran’s Experiment
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran is an Indian-American Scientist. Ramachandran is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. He is a Distinguished Professor in UCSD’s Department of Psychology, where he is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition. After earning a medical degree in India, Ramachandran studied experimental neuroscience at Cambridge, obtaining his PhD there. Most of his research has been in the fields of behavioral neurology and visual psychophysics.
In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard conducted an experiment using the words “kiki” and “bouba” and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India “Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?” In both groups, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as “bouba” and the jagged one as “kiki”, suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way. From these experiments we can infer that people form uniform opinion based on shape and appearance.
Why not we judge a book by its cover?
“Never judge a book by its cover”, is one of the popular sayings. But many a times it’s over-used or abused. People say that no one can be judged by their appearances. But in reality, a shabbily dressed person is never looked up. Even when someone is competent to perform a task, people reject him if he is not properly dressed. Even when we go to the library, many of us pick a book based on the cover and the look and feel of the book. We don’t have time to fully browse through the book and borrow it. We may give maximum weightage for the title of the book and the author’s history and reputation. Otherwise most of the time, the thing that attracts the reader is the cover of the book.
Dressing for First Impression
Dressing for success is important when the attention span of people is very less. Image at first instant is very vital. People judge you by the way you look on the outside.
The foundation of a positive patient–physician relationship rests on mutual trust, confidence and respect. Patients are not only more compliant when they perceive their doctors as being competent, supportive and respectful, but also more likely to discuss important information such as medication compliance, end-of-life wishes or sexual histories. Several studies have demonstrated that such relationships positively impact patient outcomes, especially in chronic, sensitive, and stigmatizing problems such as diabetes mellitus, cancer or mental health disorders. In the increasingly rushed patient–physician encounter, the ability to gain a patient’s confidence with the goal to optimize health outcomes has become a veritable challenge. Therefore, strategies that help in gaining patient trust and confidence are highly desirable. A number of studies have suggested that physician attire may be an important early determinant of patient confidence, trust and satisfaction. A more recent review reported that patients prefer formal attire and a white coat.
Punctuality & Time Management
When you attend office in time, people would not explicitly appreciate you. But they form an opinion that you are a serious person. When attending meetings and conferences in time, people feel good about your respect for others. On the contrary, if a person is invariably late for meetings, people would never revere or respect them, however technically good they are. If being in time in a new gathering does not make you a great person, but being late in a new gathering would make an impression that you are a person who does not care about the system and processes. I always ensure that I am present at least 15 minutes before any event. There are multiple benefits of being earlier to an event. Thais reduces anxiety and stress if you are the presenter. You have enough time to network with people. The most important thing is that you make a positive first impression among the team.
First impression is an important aspect of both personal and professional life. Because, we never have a second chance to make a first impression.
Five Tips to Improve First Impression Mindset
· Dress up appropriately for occasions.
· Be at event 10–15 minutes before the scheduled time. Never compromise on this.
· When attending an event, greet everyone you meet and introduce yourself quickly.
· After having a business meeting with anyone, send him/her mail within few hours.
· Understand the difference in being firm and rude. Be firm and never be rude.
