When working with others, the first impression is crucial. Others may regard me differently than I perceive myself based on our first interaction. My objectives may be the primary source of how I perceive myself. Others will largely perceive me based on my actions. While I may choose to disregard some aspects of myself as insignificant, others will identify them as blind spots and have an unfavorable opinion of them. This study report tries to establish the first impression that individuals have of me when they meet me. I may only focus on my internal and emotional struggles but others will loosely just focus on the outward fragments of me. I believe that if I have a positive demeanour, then men will perceive me nicer than women will.
The study was carried out among people of both genders both of whom attended High Point University and the non-attendants. I used specific questions to obtain the results that I had intended. Responses consisted of ratings on the scale of 1-10, ranging from very bad/very low/very little on the lower side to very good/very high/very much on the higher side.
Research questions
The following questions were used in line with the hypothesis to help arrive at the results and illustrate a better understanding of how different genders may perceive me.
Do people perceive me the way I perceive myself?
Does gender play a role in how I am perceived since I am a woman?
Results
Basing on the impression that my respondents had of me, the following questions were used in the questionnaire to find out how both men and women perceived me.
How honest do you think I am?
How confident do I appear?
How intelligent do you think I am?
How comfortable are you responding honestly to me with your opinions?
How intimidating do I appear to you?
The results obtained from the respondents are represented in the table below.
Questions
Me
Males
Females
HPU (Yes)
HPU (No)
How honest do you think I am?
7.71
7.2
8.1
7.66
7.86
How confident do I appear?
7.9
7.48
8.2
7.75
8.35
How intelligent do you think I am?
7.86
7.48
8.15
7.8
7.8
How comfortable are you responding honestly to me with your opinions?
7.61
7.05
8.04
7.55
7.8
How intimidating do I appear to you?
4.01
3.91
4.08
4.28
3.2
From the above table, it can be seen that the rating was good with the females rating me highly in nearly all questions. The responses for the HPU attendants and non-attendants were nearly the same. I believe that my good moral values were the reason why my respondents considered me honest. As for intelligence, confidence, and conformability, I believe my high score was due to my seriousness and friendly approach to my respondents. Generally, serious individuals are perceived by society to be intimidating, however, the friendly and warm interaction I had with the participants seem to be the reason they consider me to be less intimidating. The patterns in the responses by the participants are due to the manner in which I carry out myself.
The following table shows the class averages in relation to the same questions
Questions
Class average
males
Females
HPU (Yes)
HPU (No)
How honest do you think I am?
8.11
7.97
8.07
8.13
7.9
How confident do I appear?
9.31
7.54
8.86
6.97
7.98
How intelligent do you think I am?
8.16
6.69
7.45
7.53
8.65
How comfortable are you responding honestly to me with your opinions?
7.98
7.78
8.02
7.82
7.91
How intimidating do I appear to you?
4.79
4.26
Missing
Missing
Missing
In comparing with the class averages, I found out that my average rating for intimidation was lower than the class average implying that most of the other students were considered more intimidating by the participants than I am.
The results for honesty is rather unusual as the participants that I approached off-campus premises (HPU No) were able to rate me higher than my peers on campus. However, it proves that the efficiency of a study is not only enhanced by being in one’s comfort zones. As for confidence, the females perceived me as more confident compared to their male counterparts. I had expected this trend since men usually perceive women as a weak creation with low confidence levels. Interestingly, my strange participants, the HPU non-attendants rated my confidence higher than the HPU attendants did. The higher difference in the ratings of males and females prove that perception is highly dependent on a person’s gender.
Relevance of Findings
From the data, it is true that gender does play a role in the way people perceive me. Being a lady, males tend to have a negative perception towards me. Most of them may perceive me as weak and that i do not meet the qualities stated in the questionnaire. On the other hand, females look deeper than the outward appearance and they rate me without any bias.
While I may perceive myself as strong, honest, confident, intelligent, and less intimidating, people may not necessarily perceive me the same way. Although the data show that i am rated above the average in all the questions, it is proves that people do not perceive me the way I perceive myself. They may not see me as confident, intelligent, and honest just as I see myself. This is mainly because they simply look at me from the outside.
This data was important since I was able to how people perceive me and how these attributes impacts influence how people perceive me. It gave the basis from which I can gauge myself and work on improving my image.
Conclusion
Generally, females perceived me highly compared to the males in all the categories. Males appear to have a bad perception towards the female gender. As a result, the rating by males tends to be lower in all the categories. As for the HPU attendants and non-attendants, I was surprised with the responses since I had not expected people who were strange to me to rate me so highly.
