Schema in psychology

 

In psychology, a schema is a mental structure that helps organize and interpret information. Schemas represent some aspect of the world and allow us to take shortcuts in processing vast amounts of information.

Schemas are built from our experiences and memories, and they help us understand and predict the world around us. For example, a child might have a schema for a cat that includes characteristics like having four legs, fur, and a tail. When they encounter a new animal that fits this schema, they might initially identify it as a cat until they learn more specific details.

An organized collection of schemas represent the components of a worldview.

Schemas can be beneficial because they help us quickly process and categorize information. However, they can also lead to biases and stereotypes, because we might ignore information that doesn’t fit our existing schemas.

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, was instrumental in developing the concept of schemas in his theory of cognitive development. He believed that schemas are both the categories of knowledge and the processes of acquiring that knowledge, and they are constantly being adapted as we encounter new information.

A self-schema is a concept, which refers to our organization about ourselves, which is modified throughout our life. Depending on the author, the concept, self-schema may be the same as the concept, self-concept.

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Norbert M. Seel (2012) offers the following definition (pp. 2936-2939)

Schemas are acquired and constructed through experiences with specific instances. Physiologically speaking, they start as simple networks and develop into more complex structures. From the perspective of psychology, the development of schemas starts with the construction of simple behavioral action schemas, which are learned through organizational socialization and concrete experiences, and proceeds to cognitive schemas by means of the functional incorporation of the regular structure of actions into the memory.

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 References

Seel, N.M. (2012). Schema Development. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_365

 

 Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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