Your schemas help you understand how things (like a job interview or a first date) work or should work. Communicators retrieve schemas from memory and interpret new information, people, and situations in accordance with those schemas. For example, imagine that during your walk across campus, a classmate approaches and says, “Hey, what’s up?” An existing schema (based on memories of past encounters) tells you that you will exchange hellos and then, after some small talk, go your separate ways. When you recognize one component of a schema, the entire schema is activated and helps you to know what to say or how to behave in a particular situation.

Schemas are fairly stable once they are established, but they can also change somewhat as you go through life perceiving new or conflicting bits of information about different people and situations. For example, the interaction appearance theory helps explain how people change their perceptions of someone, particularly their physical attractiveness, the more they interact (Albada, Knapp, & Theune, 2002). You probably have noticed that people become more or less attractive to you as you get to know them better. For example, you might find a colleague more attractive after you discover her quirky sense of humor or less attractive when you experience his short temper.