A personal example of information integration theory that I can remember is when I met C.J. White my junior year in high school. It was the first week of school and the first day that we met early in the morning for swim practice. We weren’t going to practice that day, it was just a day for introductions. As soon as I pulled up to the parking lot, I saw a new face. As a junior, I knew most of the people on the team and had even met some of the newbies at school. However, I had not seen this boy before and I did not like the fact that there was someone that I did not know there. This first bad impression is called perceiver characteristics. Once we got to introduce ourselves to the rest of the group my perceiver characteristics were confirmed. He was not a good addition to the team. He was a very cocky boy, that thought too much of himself. This second bad impression was based on some of his characteristics that came on too strongly.
After that first bad impression, I knew that I had to be respectful of him even if I did not like him, due to the fact that we were on a team together. So I decided to start a conversation with him and get to know him better. I learned that C.J. is just very confident in himself and has a very extroverted personality. I have been dating him ever since junior year of high school and it has been a great relationship despite this first bad impression.
References:
Anderson (1981)
Kashima and Kerekes (1994)
