When First Impressions Don't Last: The Role of Isolation and Adaptation Processes in the Revision of Evaluative Impressions

Three experiments were conducted to examine the psychological processes underlying the revision of evaluative person impressions. It is proposed that the favorability of first impressions affects the extent to which people will draw in (i.e., adapt) or resist drawing in (i.e., isolate) subsequently processed information into an extant impression. These processes have consequences for impression change and the degree to which people are able to retrieve the evidential basis of their impressions. The findings from three experiments provided evidence for the present conceptualization. The findings are discussed in terms of their consequences for belief change and social information processing.