events, our experiences were quite different. One explanation for our different
reactions is that my friend and I were using different schemas.
Schemas are hypothetical cognitive structures that help us perceive,
organize, process, and use information. Because there are so many stimuli to
attend to in most situations, we need some way to make sense of the mass
confusion around us. Imagine what the world must look like to a baby —
what psychologist William James once referred to as a “buzzing, blooming
confusion. ”The baby does not know what in all this confusion to pay atten-
tion to and what to ignore. Of course, the mass of stimuli doesn ’t go away.
Think about all the sounds and sights bombarding your senses at this verymoment. Fortunately, each of us has developed systems for identifying and at-tending to what is important and ignoring the rest.
One of the main functions of schemas is to help us perceive features in
our environment. Naturally, when something extremely important happensor someone possesses an attention-grabbing feature, everyone notices. If a 7-
foot-tall man attends a party, everyone makes note of his height. But less con-
spicuous features of an environment will probably not be noticed unless weenter the situation with a readiness to process that information. Actually, I
seldom notice how tall people are. However, a friend of mine is very aware
of other people’ s height (she is short). In schema terms, the reason she pays
attention to height is that she has a well-developed schema for processing
this information. Because I use different schemas to process information
about others, she and I often have different impressions of people.
Beyond helping to perceive certain features in our environment, schemas
provide us with a structure within which to organize and process informa-tion. For example, I can incorporate a new piece of information about my
mother into my existing knowledge of her because I have a well-defined
mother schema. I can give you a well-organized description of her because
the information is organized into one well-formed cognitive structure rather
than scattered about as bits of information in various unrelated schemas.
I also should be able to process information about my mother more readily
than information about a woman I have never met. When asked if my motheris sociable, I should be able to answer more quickly than if asked whether the
queen of England is sociable. Without a strong schema for the queen, it will
take me longer to process whatever information I might have about her.Moreover, because my mother schema provides me with a framework within
which to process and organize information, it is easier for me to use this in-formation. I should be able to recall information about my mother morereadily than information stored loosely in my memory.
COGNITIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SELF
Of all the cognitive structures that organize and store memories, the most impor-
tant mental representation is probably the one most unique to you. Beginning at
a very early age, each of us develops a cognitive representation of ourselves.
Psychologists sometimes refer to this representation as our self-concept. As with
other personality constructs, researchers f ind that our self-concepts are relativelyCognitive Representations of the Self 417