Recall a time when you had to form an impression about a situation so as to make a decision. For example, perhaps you applied for a job and needed to form an impression about your potential work environment to determine whether or not it was a fit for you. Or maybe you went to a party and wanted to size up the situation to decide whether to stay or move on to another evening activity.
• With respect to the situation you recalled, consider the following questions:
• What information did you use to size up or make inferences about the people and the social situation? How did you decide what information was important to use?
• What biases and past experiences influenced your impressions and decision making? Do you think aspects of your culture or views of a different culture impacted your impressions?
• How did you frame the decisions you had to make?
• How did your emotions, mood, and motives impact the inferences?
• What shortcuts (schemas, heuristics) did you use to form your inferences? How did these shortcuts help or hinder your decision-making process?
• What elements of your culture influence these schemas? Would a person from a different culture draw on a different schema?
With these thoughts in mind:
Brief description of a specific social situation in which you formed an initial impression and needed to make a decision relative to that situation. Include the decision you needed to make. Then explain what information helped form your impressions and helped you to make the decision. Finally, briefly explain what schema or heuristics you used, how they facilitated or hindered your processing and decision making, and how the schema or heuristic might be founded in your culture.