Schemas

• Individuals have a schema that applies to groups of people such as old people, shy people, teacher etc
• Based on experiences, individuals develop a generic set of idea about what people are like, how to interact with them and thoughts about them
• Schemas for specific events are scripts - based on the expectations of how to behave in a variety of situations
• Role schemas - help people adjust their behaviour to the demands of any role they have to perform - example: Schema of what it means to be a student
• Influences behaviour
• Useful as it allows us to take shortcuts in interpreting a vast amount of information
• We exclude information that doesn't fit in our schemas - misremembering things
• Cognitive framework - helps organise and interpret information in the brain
• Shortcuts - thinking faster and more efficient
• Generic knowledge packages - allows us to prepare for a variety of experiences and situations
• Schemas - developed through experiences with the world and is stored in memory