First Impressions - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Worth clicking through for the full story. Essentially, we failed to respond appropriately to the Gulf Oil Spill and the Icelandic Volcano because our first impressions anchored us to a given course of action. Initially, the oil spill seemed small so we weren't able to adjust when it turned out to be much, much worse. Similarly, our impressions of the ash cloud were much worse than it actually turned out and a lot of flights were grounded unnecessarily. Interesting.