Prejudices and assumptions are difficult to eradicate, they are already created in the early stages of your life, whether you like it or not. From the moment you are born, you come into the world without prejudices or assumptions, but through upbringing, school friends, family, media, etc., you create consciously or unconsciously assumptions and prejudices. In this blog we will discuss making assumptions and prejudices in more detail.

Do you know the riddle: a man and his son have a serious car accident. The father dies on the spot. The son is taken to the hospital, straight into the operating room. The surgeon looks at the boy and says: “I cannot operate on this boy, he is my son!”

How is this possible? Think about it for a while, but we will definitely come back to it!

First impression

The facial expressions, the clothes, whether he is big or small, black or white, or the language someone uses, immediately gives an opinion about a person. This custom is probably a legacy from prehistoric times. For our ancestors, it was of vital importance to determine in a millisecond whether an encounter was dangerous or not. According to research, it now takes us a little longer: in 0,25 seconds we determine whether we find someone honest, boring, arrogant or nice. The first impression is not decisive, but it is leading. The person looks for confirmation to confirm his assumption

In short: is the first impression good? Then the person looks for confirmation that he likes or likes that person. Is the first impression bad? Then the person looks for confirmation that he does not like or like that person.

Puzzle

Have you thought about the answer to the riddle? What is your answer? The most common answers are: “the boy is adopted”, “he is the son of a gay couple”, “the mother cheated”. These answers are all wrong because there is one simple solution and it has to do with making assumptions.

Your brain probably assumes that a surgeon is a man... but a surgeon can also be a woman... has the penny dropped? The surgeon is simply the boy's mother.

This is a good example of an unconscious image, a certain mindset. The difficult thing, of course, is that many images are so unconscious that we do not even realize that our conversation partner has a completely different image in his head. As a seller, it is important to make as few assumptions as possible in order to properly understand your conversation partner. And once you know what your conversation partner needs, the deal is as good as closed.

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