primacy effects / pigeonholing

[gusl]

One thing that's weird in this country is how long it takes some people to update their beliefs.

For example, many people will pigeonhole me as a foreigner (whether by my appearance or by seeing me speaking English), and insist on speaking English to me, and will not believe that I speak Dutch *even*after* I speak several sentences of good Dutch. Maybe this is due to confirmation bias: people only hear what they want to hear.

On the other hand, if people pigeonhole me as a Dutch person (by hearing my accentless speech), they won't believe me when I say that I don't understand something... and will have no pity on my poor understanding, and speak too fast.

Why don't people have an in-between category?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

i had a similar experience when i was living in taiwan, and i bet everyone who studies a foreign language does too. it doesn't matter how good your pronunciation is and how fluent you are, some people don't understand you, to the point where it seems like they *refuse* to understand you.

it could be willful ignorance on their part, but i prefer to take the optimistic view that some people just have a hard time dealing with accents, so the slightest weird thing throws them off. (probably particularly true in languages with low percentages of non-native speakers, e.g. chinese.)

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

William?

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, forgot to perform the correct obeisance to my livejournal master.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

With a few exceptions, if they listened to what I said, they would no doubt understand. As I said, my accent is barely noticeable... it seems I have the gift of phonetics.