NAME:AYIDZOE-BANSAH VICTOR

ID NUMBER:10277096

“In human interactions, we make sense of situations because we have been

in many other similar situations in the past and as a consequence of the

past experience, we build up a mental framework for comprehending such

situations”. The other name for this mental framework is a schema.

Schemas are mental structures that organise our knowledge about the social

world. This mental structures influence the information we notice, think

about, and remember. The types of schemas are; person schema, role

schema, and scripts.

Person schemas are individualised knowledge structure about specific people.

For example, you may have a person schema about your best friend that he

is kind and intelligent, but is silent and would rather frequent cafes than go

mounting climbing.

Role schemas are knowledge structure about role occupants: For example,

airline pilots fly the plane and should not be seen swigging whisky in the

cabin. And also, doctors although often meet complete strangers, they are

allowed to ask personal questions and get you to undress.

Schemas about events are generally called scripts. We have scripts for

attending lectures, going to the cinema, having a party, giving

presentation, or eating out in a restaurant. For example, when you visit a

restaurant, you expect someone to usher you to a table, you study the

menu, some takes your order, you eat, talk and drink, you pay the bill, and

you leave.

Social cognition is the way people think about themselves and the social

world _ how they select, interpret, remember and use social information to

make judgments and decisions. The schema influence social cognition through

the process of attention, encoding, and retrieval.

Attention refers to what information we notice. Thus, with respect to

attention schemas act as a kind of filter: Information consistent with them is

more likely to be noticed and to enter our consciousness. Information that

does not fit with our schemas is ignored unless it is so extreme that we

cannot help but notice it.

Encoding refers to the specific information that is stored into memory, the

information that becomes the focus of our attention is much more likely to

be stored in long - term memory. In general it is information that is

consistent with our schema is encoded.

Retrieval refers to the processes through which we recover information from

memory to use it in some manner for example, in making judgments about

other people.