Introduction
Schemas are higher-order cognitive structures that represent general bundles of knowledge of a particular concept (e.g., Fiske and Taylor 1991; Markus and Zajonc 1985; Smith 1998). When a stimulus matches one’s schema, that schema is activated and used to make judgements and decisions with greater ease and certainty and to make assumptions about missing information and form inferences (Carlston and Smith 1996). Schemas direct attention to relevant information and away from irrelevant information, influence how new information is encoded and how people remember old information, allow people to make inferences about information that is missing, and guide people’s judgements and evaluations, all of which influence how new information is perceived, encoded, and remembered (Fiske and Taylor 1991; Smith 1998).
General Description
Although the notion of schemas is prevalent among many psychological theories, there has been relatively little empirical investigation of the...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Carlston, D. E., & Smith, E. R. (1996). Principles of mental representation. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 184–210). New York: Guilford Press.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.
Markus, H., & Zajonc, R. B. (1985). The cognitive perspective in social psychology. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 137–230). New York: Random House.
Smith, E. R. (1998). Mental representation and memory. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 391–445). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Canevello, A., Reeve, C. (2017). Schemas. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_999-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_999-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences