basic elements are found in nearly everyone ’s self-schema. More interesting
to personality psychologists are the unique features within your self-schema
(Markus & Sentis, 1982; Markus & Smith, 1981). Returning to the exercise
question, some people include athlete orphysically fit in their self-schemas.
Another way of saying this is that these i ndividuals consider their athletic
activities a part of who they are. Researchers find that people who incorpo-
rate such identities into their self-schemas are more likely to stick with regu-
lar exercise programs than those who do not (Kendzierski, 1988, 1990).When exercising becomes a part of who you are, you are much less likely
to give it up when the weather turns bad or you experience a few aches and
pains.
Trait concepts, such as independence or friendliness, can also be part of
your self-schema. That is, you might think of yourself as a friendly person. Ifthat is the case, you frequently evaluate your behavior by asking yourself,“Was that a friendly thing to do? ”However, it might never occur to me to
evaluate my actions in terms of friendliness. In this example, friendliness is a
feature of your self-schema, but not mine. Because the elements that consti-tute self-schemas vary from person to person, we process information about
ourselves differently. And because of these individual differences in self-
schemas, we behave differently. In one study, elementary school children
with prosocial as a part of their self-schemas were more likely to give valu-
able tokens to others than children who did not include prosocial as part of
their self-concepts (Froming, Nasby, & McManus, 1998). In another investi-gation, men and women whose self-schemas included sexuality reported
higher levels of sexual desire and stronger romantic attachments than those
whose self-schemas did not include sexuality (Andersen, Cyranowski, &
Espindle, 1999; Cyranowski & Andersen, 2000). One team of researchers
found that Latino Americans were more likely than White Americans to in-
clude simpatico (an interpersonal style emphasizing hospitality and gracious-
ness) in their self-schemas (Holloway, Waldrip, & Ickes, 2009). Participants
with simpatico as part of their self-schema were found to interact with others
in a warmer, more engaged style.
At this point, you may be asking how psychologists determine what a
person ’s self-schema looks like. Although examining something as abstract as
self-schemas presents a challenge, cognitive personality researchers have de-
veloped some creative procedures to test their hypotheses. Essentially, these
psychologists look at how people perceive and use information presented to
them. For example, answer the following question yes or no: Are you a com-petitive person? When faced with this question on a personality inventory,
some people answer immediately and decisively, whereas others have to pause
to think about what it means to be competitive and whether they possessthose qualities. In taking the various personality tests in this book, you prob-
ably found some items were easy to answer and some for which you simply
couldn ’t make up your mind. According to a self-schema analysis, the items
that were easy to answer are those for which you have a well-defined schema.
People who say yes immediately when asked if they are competitive have
a strong competitive schema that is part of their self-schema. The schemaCognitive Representations of the Self 419