Definitions
What is schema theory?
The theory used to explain how humans process information.
What is the aim of Bartlett's study (1932)?
The aim was:
1. to investigate whether people's memory of a story is affected by schemas
2. the extent to which people's memories are reconstructive
What are the strengths and limits to the schema?
Strengths
- Organises information
- Increase information processing
- Generates expectations
- Regulate behaviour
- Stable and ensures continuity
Limits
- Creates distortions and mistakes (unfamiliar, wrong schema is activated)
- This in turn leads to misunderstandings and different interpretations of the same situation
Define stereotyping.
The social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes.
What is social schema?
They are abstract mental representations of the social world (people, interactions).
What study did French and Richards (1933) conduct? (methodology and findings)
Participants were asked to draw a clock. There were 3 conditions:
1. viewed the clock, draw from memory
2. viewed the clock, told that they were to draw from memory
3. viewed the clock, told to draw from image shown
Findings
The groups that had to draw from memory drew IIII as IV due to their schema (preconceived knowledge) on Roman numerals.
Evaluate self schema.
Strengths
- Boosts inner confidence which...
- Allows the individual to push themselves to be more successful
Limits
- It increases self hate
- The individual can be traumatised because of the past events that happened to them
- It is very unstable, because it can either increase self-hate or boost inner confidence
What is bottom-up and top-down processing?
Bottom-up processing
- Starting with no preconceived idea of what it is that individual is looking at, and allow the stimulus to influence the perception.
Top-down processing
- Background knowledge influences perception.
What are cognitive schemas?
A network of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about particular aspects (events, situations, knowledge) of the world.
Evaluate the study that French and Richards (1933) conducted.
Strengths
- provide evidence to the schema theory
- there was a control
Limits
- lack of ecological validity—the artificial environment and task that took place in the laboratory setting does not reflect daily activities
- there could be a possibility that a few of the participants do not have knowledge on Roman Numerals, which could affect the outcome and conclusions of the study (no schema for Roman Numerals, while other participants used their schema)
Provide at least 2 strengths and 2 limits for social schema.
Strengths
- Used as motivation to fulfil the expectations of society
- Contributes to the morality of the individual
- Allows for communication between similar groups of people/individuals
Limits
- Promotes stereotyping, which lead to discrimination
- Causes misleading situations, misunderstandings
- Leads to unrealistic expectations
Connect reconstructive nature to a study.
The aim was:
1. to investigate whether people's memory of a story is affected by schemas
2. the extent to which people's memories are reconstructive
How does cognitive schema work?
Schemas are based on what we know. This preconceived knowledge influences our perception on the way we interpret events and store knowledge.
Name as many studies as you can that provide evidence for the schema theory.
Darley & Gross (1983): Schema processing in the social world
Bartlett (1932) “War of the Ghosts”
Gauld & Stephenson (1967) replication
Brewer & Treyens (1981): Experiment on memory of objects in a room
Loftus & Palmer (1974)--both studies
Bransford & Johnson (1972)
Anderson & Pichert (1978)
French & Richards (1933)
Is the schema theory accurate?
Yes
- Explains why people from different cultural backgrounds perceive things differently
- People can process information by putting them in schemas
No
- The schema theory deals with our mind and thoughts, which are abstract
- There is no way of actually studying them because you can not touch or see anything
Using distortion and false memories, propose a situation that explains the definitions of these terms.
Distortion
- Errors in thinking
False memories
- Causation of the reconstructive nature of memory, which is the brain’s active processing of information to make sense of the world