The Camera as a Window

When we ask people to explain their thinking-particularly thinking that comes from the unconscious-we need to be careful in how we interpret their answers. When it comes to romance, of course, we understand that. We can not rationally describe the kind of person we fall in love with: thats why we go on dates-to test our theories about who attracts us. Part of what it means to take thin-slicing and first impressions serioulsy is accepting the fact that sometimes we can know more about someone or something in the blink of an eye than we can after months of study. But we also have to acknowledge and understand those circumsatnces when rapid congnition leads us astray. We see someone and somehow let the first impression of the person's appearance drown out every other piece of information that is gatherd in the first instant. Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means we can change our first impressions-we can alter the way we thin slice-by changing the experiences that compromise those impressions.And What happens is we come up with a plausible-sounding reason for why we might like or dislike something, then we adjust our true preference to be in line with that plausible-sounding reason.Our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, we can't look inside the room. But with experience we can become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgements and first impressions.When ever we have something we are good at - something we care about - that experience and passion fundamentally change the nature of our first impressions. This does not mean that when we are outside our areas of passion and experience, our reactions are invariably wrong, It just means they are shallow. They are hard to explain and easily disrupted. They aren't grounded in real understanding. When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signals, so that afterward, even though he or she may have talked in a noraml and friendly manner, we may say i dont think that person liked me. So with that being said understanding the information on our faces is not just a signal of what is inside our minds. In a sense it is what's going on inside our mind. All of us gravitate towards things that mean something to us, and for most of us that's people. But if people dont anchor meaning for you, then you seek something that does