Personal Narrative: The Primacy Effect

Growing up, I had always thought of myself as very open-minded and understanding. It was until my senior year in high school that realized that I still had a long way to go before I would be able to make such claims. My high school has a tradition that the senior class goes on a Kairos retreat, on half in the fall and the other half in the spring. Having participated in the fall retreat, I was asked to be a group leader, Although reluctantly, I accepted the position and had mentally prepared myself for leading a group of five classmates though the chaos of our retreat. What I never would have expected though was to have my classmate Nancy put under my charge. Out of the 25 students that would be attending, how was it possible that I be assigned to the one person I disliked the most in my entire class? How could I be

The primacy effect is “...one’s perception is determined by the first impression of another person.”(pg.224). I was affected by the primacy effect when after first meeting Nancy I witnessed her belittle a classmate for his answer to teacher’s question. This initial negative experience would be something that would for a very long time affect how I perceived Nancy’s actions. Not only was I ensnared by the primacy effect but I was also affected by selective attention. Selective attention is “...define as the process of filtering the info our sense receive.” (pg.222). Now that Nancy’s action had cast her in the shadows in my eyes, I also believed it was impossible for her perform good actions. Everything she did was pulled and picked part in order to find whatever negative thing I could find. I filtered out the good things and clung to her dark actions in order justify my dislike for Nancy. Thankfully, my experience with Nancy helped me understand the flaws that can be found in our perceptions and how we can overcome their