HOW DO SCHEMAS WORK?
What do schemas do in information-processing terms? How do they function as organizing structures that influence the encoding, storing and recall of complex social information? Schemas are theory-driven Because schemas are based on our prior expectations and social knowledge, they have been described as ‘theory-driven’ structures that lend organization to experience. We use these background theories to make sense of new situations and encounters, which suggests that schematic processing is driven by background theories and suppositions rather than actual enviromental data (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). This isn’t always the case, however, as we will see later.
Schemas facilitate memory
Schemas help us process information quickly and economically and facilitate memory recall. This means we are more likely to remember details that are consistent with our schema than those that are inconsistent (Hastie & Park, 1986; Stangor & McMillan, 1992). For example, Cohen (1981) presented participants with a video of a woman having dinner with her husband. Those who were told that she was a librarian were more likely to remember that she wore glasses, whereas those who were told she was a waitress were more likely to remember her drinking beer.
Schemas are energy-saving devices Simplifying information and reducing the cognitive effort that goes into a task preserves cognitive resources for more important tasks. Schemas, such as stereotypes, therefore function as energysaving devices (Macrae, Milne & Bodenhausen, 1994). In ambiguous situations, schemas help us to ‘fill in’ missing information with ‘best guesses’ and ‘default options’ based on our expectations and previous experience. They can also provide short cuts by utilizing heuristics such as representativeness (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972, 1973a). With limited information, we can use the representativeness heuristic to determine the degree to which a stimulus is representative of a more general category. Is John, who is shy and mild-mannered, more likely to be an accountant or a business executive? See chapter 12 for a discussion of situations in which these heuristics may be useful or misleading. Schemas are evaluative and affective Schemas also serve to evaluate social stimuli as good or bad, normal or abnormal, positive or negative, and some contain a strong affective component, so that when they are activated the associated emotion is cued. For example, the prototypic used-car salesman may automatically evoke suspicion, or a prototypic politician may trigger cynicism and distrust (Fiske, 1982; Fiske & Pavelchak, 1986). This is probably an important feature of some people’s race stereotypes, eliciting strong negative emotions and evaluations.
Schemas are unified, stable structures that resist change
Once developed and strengthened through use, schemas become integrated structures. Even when only one of its components is accessed, strong associative links between the components activate the schema as a unitary whole (Fiske & Dyer, 1985). Well-developed schemas that are activated frequently resist change and persist, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. So a male chauvinist with a highly accessible and frequently activated stereotype that women are less capable than men is rarely convinced otherwise, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Consistent with the ultimate attribution error described above, instances that disconfirm the stereotype are treated as ‘exceptions to the rule’. This notion is consistent with the subtyping model of stereotype change, which predicts that disconfirming instances of the stereotype are relegated to ‘exceptional’ sub-categories or subtypes that accommodate exceptions while leaving the overall stereotype largely intact (Weber & Crocker, 1983).
For example, Hewstone, Hopkins and Routh (1992) found that, despite a one-year school liaison programme that facilitated positive interactions between a police officer and secondary school students, this experience did not change the students’ overall negative representations of the police. Instead, these particular officers were judged by the school students to be atypical of the police in general. There is considerable empirical support for the subtyping model (Hewstone, 1994; Johnston & Hewstone, 1992). Othermodels have received less empirical support. These include the book-keeping model, which proposes that there is constant fine-tuning of a schema with each new piece of information (Rumelhart & Norman, 1978), and the conversion model, which proposes that there is dramatic and sudden change in the schema in response to salient contradictions (Rothbart, 1981).
What do schemas do in information-processing terms? How do they function as organizing structures that influence the encoding, storing and recall of complex social information? Schemas are theory-driven Because schemas are based on our prior expectations and social knowledge, they have been described as ‘theory-driven’ structures that lend organization to experience. We use these background theories to make sense of new situations and encounters, which suggests that schematic processing is driven by background theories and suppositions rather than actual enviromental data (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). This isn’t always the case, however, as we will see later.
Schemas facilitate memory
Schemas help us process information quickly and economically and facilitate memory recall. This means we are more likely to remember details that are consistent with our schema than those that are inconsistent (Hastie & Park, 1986; Stangor & McMillan, 1992). For example, Cohen (1981) presented participants with a video of a woman having dinner with her husband. Those who were told that she was a librarian were more likely to remember that she wore glasses, whereas those who were told she was a waitress were more likely to remember her drinking beer.
Schemas are energy-saving devices Simplifying information and reducing the cognitive effort that goes into a task preserves cognitive resources for more important tasks. Schemas, such as stereotypes, therefore function as energysaving devices (Macrae, Milne & Bodenhausen, 1994). In ambiguous situations, schemas help us to ‘fill in’ missing information with ‘best guesses’ and ‘default options’ based on our expectations and previous experience. They can also provide short cuts by utilizing heuristics such as representativeness (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972, 1973a). With limited information, we can use the representativeness heuristic to determine the degree to which a stimulus is representative of a more general category. Is John, who is shy and mild-mannered, more likely to be an accountant or a business executive? See chapter 12 for a discussion of situations in which these heuristics may be useful or misleading. Schemas are evaluative and affective Schemas also serve to evaluate social stimuli as good or bad, normal or abnormal, positive or negative, and some contain a strong affective component, so that when they are activated the associated emotion is cued. For example, the prototypic used-car salesman may automatically evoke suspicion, or a prototypic politician may trigger cynicism and distrust (Fiske, 1982; Fiske & Pavelchak, 1986). This is probably an important feature of some people’s race stereotypes, eliciting strong negative emotions and evaluations.
Schemas are unified, stable structures that resist change
Once developed and strengthened through use, schemas become integrated structures. Even when only one of its components is accessed, strong associative links between the components activate the schema as a unitary whole (Fiske & Dyer, 1985). Well-developed schemas that are activated frequently resist change and persist, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. So a male chauvinist with a highly accessible and frequently activated stereotype that women are less capable than men is rarely convinced otherwise, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Consistent with the ultimate attribution error described above, instances that disconfirm the stereotype are treated as ‘exceptions to the rule’. This notion is consistent with the subtyping model of stereotype change, which predicts that disconfirming instances of the stereotype are relegated to ‘exceptional’ sub-categories or subtypes that accommodate exceptions while leaving the overall stereotype largely intact (Weber & Crocker, 1983).
For example, Hewstone, Hopkins and Routh (1992) found that, despite a one-year school liaison programme that facilitated positive interactions between a police officer and secondary school students, this experience did not change the students’ overall negative representations of the police. Instead, these particular officers were judged by the school students to be atypical of the police in general. There is considerable empirical support for the subtyping model (Hewstone, 1994; Johnston & Hewstone, 1992). Othermodels have received less empirical support. These include the book-keeping model, which proposes that there is constant fine-tuning of a schema with each new piece of information (Rumelhart & Norman, 1978), and the conversion model, which proposes that there is dramatic and sudden change in the schema in response to salient contradictions (Rothbart, 1981).
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