Cognitive Theory: Schemas, Attributes, and Decision Biases

Abstract

The world surrounding us presents us with a constantly changing flow of stimulation. We are bombarded by an ever-shifting pattern of light and heat radiation, surges of sound impulses, and other stimulus qualities to which we are sensitive. How do we ever make sense of it? How is it possible that we come to “know” our environments and ourselves, with a sense of easy familiarity? These questions provide the basis for this chapter. In the present chapter we discuss some ideas from cognitive psychology about how our knowledge of the world is acquired and organized, and how it is utilized in new settings. In the following two chapters we consider the implications of these ideas for understanding how people organize and use knowledge of themselves, and of their physical and social environments (cf. Kelly, 1955).

“The rudiments of memory are laid in the perpetual recurring of the same impressions, and clusters of impressions.”

Hartley, Observations on Man, 1749