English Listening B1 Episode 29 - Track 09
Fill in the Blanks Exercise
TRACK 9
Speaker: First impressions don't .
Good morning. Thank you so much for . As promised, I'm going to talk about how we form first impressions and how they work.
We all form impressions of . So picture this: you're waiting in line at your favorite coffee shop. The line is long, but it's . The person in front of you in line is . He's loud . He makes comments about the service . When he finally gets to the counter, he yells at the person who . You assume "This is not a nice person," and you hope you never .
From this short encounter, you have . You were with him only briefly, but you may think you know . One mistake people often make in forming first impressions is to think that a small example of someone's behavior can give us a . If you see a friendly, smiling young woman taking your order at the coffee shop, you may think she is friendly and smiling .
In addition to thinking she is always friendly, you may also think she has . This is the second error people . Because she is friendly, you assume that she is also intelligent, happy, and good . Of course, the opposite . The rude customer in front of you in the coffee line did not make a . You saw an example of his poor behavior, his rudeness, and you assumed he had . You thought "This is not a nice person."
OK, so if our first impression of someone is positive, we think the person is always that way and we think that all of her traits . We think that small sample of behavior shows us her . But we don't think that way about . Let me explain . When we see someone else acting in a negative way, we think it is because he is . But when we act in a negative way, we say it is because of .
Let's go back to the coffee shop . If I am rude to the person taking my coffee order, I will find reasons for my —the service is too slow, my mother is very sick, or my boss just yelled at me. In other words, when I act badly, I think it's because of the situation, not because I am . But if another customer is rude, I don't look for reasons—I think it is . In other words, he acted badly because he is .
First impressions can . They help us make sense of new information, and form relationships . But, as you can see, we can make errors, so sometimes we need to .
