Self-Schema

The term self-schema refers to the beliefs and ideas people have about themselves. These beliefs are used to guide and organize information processing, especially when the information is significant to the self. Self-schemas are important to a person's overall self-concept.

Self-schemas vary from person to person because each individual has very different social and cultural life experiences. A few examples of self-schemas are; exciting/ dull, quiet/ loud, healthy/ sickly, athletic/ nonathletic, lazy/ active, and geek/ jock. If a person has a schema for geek/ jock, for example, he might think of himself as a bit of a computer geek and so he would possess a lot of information about that trait. Because of this he would probably interpret a lot of situations based on their relevance to being a geek. For another example consider the healthy/ sickly schema. A person with this schema might consider herself a very health conscious person. Her concern with being healthy would then affect every day decisions like what to buy at the grocery store, what restaurant to eat out at, or how much exercise she should get daily.

References

1. Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. (2008) Personality Theory and Research. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

2. Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. (2008). Social Psychology Seventh Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.