Social Schemas Flashcards
What are social schemas?
Theoretical/cognitive constructs = knowledge about a concept (attributes and relations = influences how we process, store and use social information = developed through prior experience and socialisation
We receive a lot of sensory information so categorisation is important
Discuss categorisation and processing
Central to information processing
How we identify stimuli and group them based on similarity as members of one group. Different stimuli are placed in other categories.
Imposes order on complex world and is fundamental to perception, thought, language and action
Discuss categorisation in social identity theory and self-categorisation theory
Categorise as ingroups and outgroups, implying a cognitive process
However, the theories don’t explain explicitly how this occurs or the processes involved
Discus functionality of schemas
Organise complex information meaningfully = simplify information from the social environment through organising it = understand stimuli we have come across before as have expectations
= immediately know what the stimulus is
Guides cognitive processes (eg. information processing, memory and inference)
Discuss person schemas
Represent knowledge about personality traits
Helps categorise people according to their personal traits and allows us to anticipate our interactions with them
Impression formation of individuals can contribute towards schemas
Discuss role schemas
Knowledge of the norms of specific roles in society
Used to categorise people and provide expectations about these individuals
Achieved roles where people occupy these because of the effort and training they have put into them; Ascribed roles where people occupy them but can’t do much about this
Can lead to stereotyping and prejudice
Discuss self schemas
Represent knowledge of oneself
Guides processing of self-related information = tells us who we are, how we act and what information about ourselves that we will encode and remember
Is related to self-identity
Discuss event schemas
Represents knowledge of the typical sequence of events on familiar social occasions
Helps predict what will happen and guide how to act at each stage
Provides a context within which people, object and outcome/goal schemas operate
Discuss prototypes
A typical example of something which falls into a category and serves as a cognitive reference point
Is an abstract representation of average of category members (central tendency) experienced before
How do we categorise?
Involves comparing similarity of stimuli to a category prototype and grouping accordingly
Some categories have clear boundaries but others are more fuzzy = more resemblance/common features = category boundaries become clear
Boundaries of social stimuli are often more fuzzy with more overlap as a person may fit into many categories
Compare object versus social categorisation
The process is the same but…
Object categorisation = relatively simple, category members share the same features = clear boundaries/less overlap of categories
Social categorisation = relatively complex = category members share fewer features and boundaries are more fuzzy with more overlap
Discuss processing of stimuli based on match with schema
Poor match between stimuli and schema = bottom-up/data driven processing to develop new schema/ change an old schema. However, schemas are often very resistant to change
Good match = schema-based processing with top-down/theory-driven processing
People use both types of processing to make sense of the world
Discuss the continuum model of processing
Schemas = don’t have to think as hard
Category-driven (top-down/schema-driven processing) = fast, non-strategic, efficient, automatic, noy conscious and occurs 240ms of stimulus presentation
Data-driven (bottom-up) processing = slow, strategic, cognitively demanding, needs attention, effortful, conscious and occurs 2000ms after stimulus presentation
Describe the steps of schema-based processing
Once a schema is activated:
attention is guided to new stimuli relevant to expectations set up by the schema
schema-relevant stimuli are encoded into memory
we are likely to recall information we encode to memory
We are more likely to notice and encode social information which is consistent with our schemas
Discuss evidence for schema-based processing
Cohen (1981)
Participants told woman was either a librarian or a waitress = activated schemas for achieved roles = later more likely to remember schema consistent information
Stagor & MacMillan (1992) = accurate recall of information consistent with tschema, suggesting schema-driven processing
Rojahn & Pettigrew (1992) = more accurate recall of information inconsistent with schema, suggesting bottom-up/data-driven processing
