#thin-slicing

Stop agonizing. Get the strategy straightened and the marketing materials made.

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions - we can alter the way we thin-slice - by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions.  If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way - who would like to have a set of associations with blacks that are as positive as those that you have with whites, it requires more than a simple commitment to equality.  It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort.  Taking rapid cognition seriously - acknowledging the incredible power, for good and ill, that first impressions play in our lives - requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions.