Schema Theory
An Information Processing Model of Perception and Cognition
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3562291 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Axelrod (0000-0003-4758-6590, University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1973 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1248-1266 |
| Publication date | 1973-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1956546 |
| OpenAlex | W2111178830 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 114 |
| References cited | 79 |
The world is complex, and yet people are able to make some sense out of it. This paper offers an information-processing model to describe this aspect of perception and cognition. The model assumes that a person receives information which is less than perfect in terms of its completeness, its accuracy, and its reliability. The model provides a dynamic description of how a person evaluates this kind of information about a case, how he selects one of his pre-existing patterns (called schemata) with which to interpret the case, and how he uses the interpretation to modify and extend his beliefs about the case. It also describes how this process allows the person to make the internal adjustments which will serve as feedback for the interpretation of future information. A wide variety of evidence from experimental and social psychology is cited to support the decisions which went into constructing the separate parts of the schema theory, and further evidence is cited supporting the theory's system-level predictions. Since the schema theory allows for (but does not assume) the optimization of its parameters, it is also used as a framework for a normative analysis of the selection of schemata. Finally, a few illustrations from international relations and especially foreign-policy formation show that this model of how people make sense out of a complex world can be directly relevant to the study of important political processes
Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Information processing · Information retrieval · Interpretation (philosophy · Normative · Normative model of decision-making · Perception · Schema (genetic algorithms · Variety (cybernetics · Artificial Intelligence · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Cognitive Science and Mapping · Computer Science · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology
Political Perception
Inside the Mental Voting Booth
Psychohistory and Political Psychology
Nonverbal Behavior and Leadership
Political Information Processing
The Poly-Psy Relationship
Cognitive Structural Analysis of Political Rhetoric
Affect and Political Judgment
Information and Electoral Attitudes
An Overview of the Field of Political Psychology
The Drunkard’s Search
Decision Making in Presidential Primaries
Violent Extremism
Framing-effects approach
Symbolic Politics
The “Perfect” Target
Realism and International Relations
Shaping the Sustainable City Schema
The Interaction of Influencer Types, Advertising Appeals and Product Types on Consumer Purchase Intention from the Perspective of HSM Theory
Toward an Agent-Agnostic Transmission Model
Professional Vision and the Compensatory Effect of a Minimal Instructional Intervention
Rumors and Conspiracy Theories in Bulgarian Social Media During Covid-19 Pandemic
Unraveling myths
Cultivating Sustainability
Furnishing your home? The impact of voice assistant avatars in virtual reality shopping
The Effect of Myth Education on Responses to Disclosures of Sexual Assault
The development and validation of the family coping expectations scale
Effects of news coverage of police brutality
Can warnings curb the spread of fake news? The interplay between warning, trust and confirmation bias
Why people remain inactive during a crisis
Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985–2020
Die Rahmenanalyse politischer Diskurse
Temporalization of complexity
The Psychology of Group Conflict and the Dynamics of Oppression
Segregation by Design
Perceived biodiversity
To thine communication partner be true
Childhood Maltreatment and Emotional Intelligence Across Development
Closing the Perception Gap
The epistemic autonomy of mass media audiences
Ears on the Street
El análisis de los marcos en la obra de William Gamson
Reconstructing reality
On the (in)effectiveness of textual disclosures on expectancies, attitudes, and perceived appropriateness of alcohol
Motivations, risks, and constraints
Does consistency matter? Perception and persuasiveness of value appeals in populist communication
Detecting Looming Vetoes
Role of Pedagogy in the Development and Vicissitude of Buddhism
Policy Evaluation and Learning
How do destination meme videos affect travel intentions
The Assumptive World of Local Political Elites
Embodied Cognition in Communication Science
No ordinary crowd’
Have Schemas Been Good To Think With
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Neuropolitics
Memorable encounters
Recognizing Gender Harassment in the Workplace
Accountability between Experts and the Public in Times of Risk
Perception of State-interaction in Diplomatic History
Diplomatic communication theory
International restraints and foreign policy choices
Calculating tourist sentiment ambivalence through aspect-level sentiment analysis
Knowledge A cquisition for Policymaking
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It will take a global village to find cures for global pandemics
Candidate uncertainty, mental models, and complexity
Perceptions of the Policy-Making Environment
Survival of Small Private Colleges
A Model of Agenda Dynamics
Psychology of News Decisions
Middle School Students as Social Theorists
O significado do declínio organizacional
Seeing the City Digitally
John Donne's People
El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan
Toward an Old New Paradigm the Half-Century Flirtation With Mass Society
Contributions of the Cognitive Approach to Political Psychology
"But What Else Could I Do?" Choice, Identity and a Cognitive-Perceptual Theory of Ethical Political Behavior
The Role of Belief Systems and Schemas in Foreign Policy Decision-Making
Neurophysiology, Cognition, and Political Thinking
Biology and Political Socialization
The Cognitive Structure of Peace and War Argumentation
Sources of Pro-Family Beliefs
Secrecy as a Reducer of Learning Capacity in the U.S. Foreign Policy Bureaucracy
A Pre-Theory Revisited
Cognitive Process and Foreign Policy Decision-Making
Mood Matching and Arms Control
Theoretical and Empirical Implications of Attitude Strength
How the Media Affect What People Think
When All Parties Nominate Women
Candidate Character vs. The Economy in the 1992 Election
The structure of political cognition
An Analysis of Anes Items and Their Use in the Construction of Political Knowledge Scales
The role of political trust in conditioning perceptions of corruption
The Uncertainty of the Past
How Political Psychologists Think
Coordination and Shared Mental Models
Fuzzy Sets and Models of International Relations
The Structure of Political Thinking
New directions in the study of language.
Handbook of Social Psychology
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget.
Conflict, arousal, and curiosity.
The principle of congruity in the prediction of attitude change.
Symbolic psycho-logic
Language, Thought, and Reality
Explorations in cognitive dissonance.
The psychology of interpersonal relations.
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Mate-female schemata of homosexual and non-homosexual penitentiary inmates1,2
Intolerance of Ambiguity as an Emotional and Perceptual Personality Variable
Structural balance and the induction of relations1
The retention of balanced and unbalanced cognitive structures 1
Models of Man
On Error in Deductive Reasoning
Computer Simulation of Human Behavior
Some models of balance applied to children's perceptions of international relations
Is there a position bias in the learning of influence structures
Problems of Dispositional Inference in Person Perception Research
Cognitive Consistency, Response Reinforcement, and Attitude Change
Structural Factors in Cognitive Balancing Behavior
An Experimental Study of the Theory of Structural Balance
Some psychological studies of grammar
Clustering and Structural Balance in Graphs
The learning of balanced and unbalanced social structures 1
Structural balance, reciprocity, and positivity as sources of cognitive bias 1
Problems of knowledge and freedom
The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness
The Concepts of Balance, Congruity, and Dissonance
The belief system and national images
Logical consistency and attitude change
Sources of cognitive bias in the representation of simple social structures
Comparison of three theories of cognitive balance
Effects of balance, positivity, and agreement in triadic social relations
Balance and the grouping schema
Recall and pleasantness of balanced and unbalanced cognitive structures
Principle of congruity and reduction of persuasion
Structural balance in dyads
Primacy effects in personality impression formation using a generalized order effect paradigm
Classification and Quantitative Judgement
A study in language and cognition
Some dynamic aspects of posthypnotic compliance
Pervasive influence of social schemata
Cognitive consistency and attitude change
Interpersonal preference and cognitive organization
The cognitive structure of a social structure
An experimental comparison of conclusion-drawing by the communicator and by the audience
Subjective probabilities of interpersonal relationships
The prediction of social events
Traumatic avoidance learning
Learning a social structure
Stabilities underlying changes in interpersonal attraction
Forming impressions of personality
Enhancement of contrast as composite habit
Assimilation and contrast effects in reactions to communication and attitude change
The generality of cognitive complexity in the perception of people and inkblots
"Authoritarianism and "Tolerance of Trait Inconsistency
The major determinants of the prediction of social events
Motivational and judgmental determinants of social perception
Computer Simulation of Individual Belief Systems
Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis
| Unique citing works | 114 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,15 |
| Citation span | 1973 - 2026 (54) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 114 |