A11: I'd rather not meet...

During the last few day of summer before my sophomore year here at Cornell, I received a Facebook friend request from stranger. (I went looking for the exact “friend request” message but could not find it, so I’ll paraphrase) The message read as so:

"Hi Taek!
This is a little awkward, but I know your sister from high school and she told me to friend you on Facebook! "

I found this to be a little odd but nonetheless friended her and messaged back with my little greeting, which turned out to be just as awkward and to the point. Facebook hadn’t exploded into what it is now, so social networking was still relatively new to me, a.k.a. I wanted more friends. My new Facebook friend (we’ll call her J) had gone to high school with my sister who had been a senior at the time and J a freshman.

I was reluctant to meet this person face to face, because I knew my sister’s friends and didn’t get along too well with them in general. Due to this presumption, I tried to limit the extent of the friendship to the internet. We talked mostly about our interests and shared the general “getting to know eachother” information. In sharing information, I tried my best to present myself as the typical Cornell Undergrad.

However, when classes began, we met up. She was nothing like what I had imagined.

According to the hyperpersonal model, the factors that play a role in impression formation are as follows:
1. over-attribution processes
2. developmental aspect
3. selective self-presentation
4. re-allocation of cognitive resources
5. behavioral confirmation

In our case, given the initial information, that she had attended my sister’s school and that she had been close to my sister, I automatically assumed that J would be an annoying girl with mannerisms similar to that of my sister. I assumed she was very smart since their high school had been one of the best in our area. By using the very few clues to over-attribute, I had formed a very negatively intensive impression of J.

Given the timeline of our CMC interaction, developmental aspect did not play a role, I was neither able to get to know J very well. But during that time, I noticed that I was pulling the clues from our conversations that would further prove my initial impression of J.

When sharing information about myself, by re-allocating my cognitive resources and not worrying about anything else but how I presented myself, I was able to effectively selectively self-present myself as a typical Cornell student without giving any extraneous hints as to who I was. I could pick and choose who I was.

When we finally met, all of the impressions that had formed broke down and to my surprise, I was relieved that I had over-attributed and had formed an exaggerated impression. Obviously, she was glad that I had more depth to my personality than some boring generic Cornell Undergrad. (499 words)

http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-what-happens-when-you-meet-your.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-my-sister-guinney-pig-for-wallace.html