Structure and development of social schemata: Evidence from positive and negative transfer effects.

Abstract

Schemata consist of components and links among the components, and schema development progresses from learning components to learning links to umtization. according to one theory (Hayes-Roth, 1977). This theory has been supported for nonsense syllable stimuli. Two experiments tested its generalizability to meaningful social stimuli. In both studies, the independent variable was stage of schema development, operationalized as degree of initial exposure to novel schemata. According to the theory, different points along the exposure continuum have nonmonotonic effects on subjects' ability to learn related material; more specifically, exposure affects positive and negative transfer of learning, resulting in a cubic function (sequentially: no transfer, positive transfer, negative transfer, no transfer). In the first experiment, both positive and negative transfer effects were obtained with social stimuli, resulting in the exact cubic function predicted by the theory. In the second experiment, the cubic transfer function was replicated over the time frame more typical of developing social knowledge (i.e., several weeks). These results show that low levels of schema development facilitate related social learning, whereas intermediate levels interfere and high levels have no effect. The nonmonotonic effects of schema development may account for some anomalous findings in social schema research.

Intergroup Bias in Group Judgment Processes: The Role of Behavioral Memories

“…Instead, it appears that judgments rely on traitbased behavioral summaries that have either been formed on-line during encoding and stored (e.g., Hastie & Park, 1986;Klein et al, 1992;Sherman & Klein, 1994) or have been inferred from group membership (Sherman, 1996). This pattern has been shown to generalize across many different social judgment domains, including self-judgments (e.g., Klein & Loftus, 1993a;Klein et al, 1992), judgments about individual targets (e.g., Anderson & Hubert, 1963;Bargh & Thein, 1985;Fiske & Dyer, 1985;Hastie & Park, 1986;Klein et al, 1992;Park, 1986;Sherman & Klein, 1994), and, of greatest relevance, judgments about social groups (e.g., Sherman, 1996).…”

“…There is an extensive body of work demonstrating that exemplar-based judgments are more likely to occur when dispositional, trait-based impressions are weak or unformed, and that, as impressions become more stable and dispositional in nature, exemplar use decreases (e.g., Anderson & Hubert, 1963;Bargh & Thein, 1985;Fiske & Dyer, 1985;Hastie & Park, 1986;Klein & Loftus, 1993a;Klein et al, 1992;Park, 1986;Sherman, 1996;Sherman & Klein, 1994). In light of this research, the presence of exemplar-based processes in judgments about negative in-groups and positive out-groups but not positive in-groups and negative out-groups strongly suggests that impressions of the latter groups were more abstract and trait-based than impressions of the former groups.…”

Development and representation of personality impressions.

“…Although most impression-formation research has neglected the developmental aspects of the impression-formation process, there are some noteworthy exceptions. Fiske and Dyer (1985), for example, examined the evolution of impressions as a function of the degree of initial exposure to impression-relevant stimuli. Subjects in their experiment were shown four items of information and were asked to form an impression on the basis of that information.…”

A Tutorial on Empirical ICT4D Research in Developing Countries: Processes, Challenges, and Lessons

“…Schemas begin as a collection of separate components but, over time, evolve into a tightly woven unit of strongly tied cognitions. Other scholars in psychology and organizational behavior research (e.g., Fiske & Dyer, 1985;Fiske & Taylor, 1991;Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991) have described cognitive schema in significant detail, but, in short, cognitive scientists assert that schemas are cognitive representations of reality that have evolved from prior knowledge, memory, and interpretations of social information (Fiske & Dyer, 1985). In other words, cognitive schemas represent organized knowledge about a concept that shapes or influences what individuals perceive and remember (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).…”