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.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003055400147823

Schema Theory: An Information Processing Model of Perception and Cognition

Social networks that are missing relations among some of their members--termed incomplete networks--have been of critical theoretical and empirical interest in sociological research on weak ties and structural holes but typically have been overlooked in social psychological studies of network learning. Five studies tested for schematic processing differences in the encoding and recalling of incomplete networks. In Studies 1 and 2, prior knowledge of missing relations facilitated learning an unfamiliar, incomplete network. Study 3 ruled out differences in general pattern recognition ability as an explanation. Study 4 manipulated the degree of familiarity with missing relations, which produced predicted differences in learning rates. Finally, Study 5 examined how improved learning of an incomplete network affected a strategic organizational choice. The findings suggest that people can become schematic for complex, incomplete social networks.

Social network schemas and the learning of incomplete networks.

Individuals use a variety of terms to designate the nature of their relationships with others, e.g., friend, lover, pal, etc. Although expectations for certain types of communicative behavior surely accompany the use of these terms, it was not clear what their communicative referents were. The first phase of this study obtained intimacy‐scaled ratings from 100 subjects to 62 relationship terms. Then more than 1,000 subjects ranging in age from 12 to 90 from eight locations across the United States responded to the six relationship words selected (lover, best friend, friend, pal, colleague, acquaintance) in terms of associated communicative behavior. The three factors central to these responses (personalness, synchrony, difficulty) were then used to analyze the relationship terms varied according to the gender, age, and marital status of the subject and the composition of a relationship to a specific other by gender. Among other findings: All age groups perceived increases in both personalized and synchron...

Perceptions of communication behavior associated with relationship terms

Summary

This review highlights one stream of work within the social network field, namely the work on cognitive social structures (CSS). First, CSS research is positioned within the field of social networks, and the key methods associated with CSS research are described. Research examining systematic biases in individuals' perceptions of social networks is covered, as is research examining the consequences of biased network perceptions (in terms of behaviors and outcomes). A research agenda is forwarded, suggesting three key directions for future research: the social capital of cognitive ties, extending and challenging network accuracy as a source of advantage and collective agency and organizational change. The overall goal is to invigorate research that moves beyond the description of cognitive social structures to an outcome-focused research paradigm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cognitive social structures in social network research: A review

A new integrated method for scoring achievement, affiliation-intimacy, and power motive imagery in verbal running text (speeches, interviews, literary works, etc.) is introduced as an aid to personality research at a distance. Systematic studies demonstrate that the new scoring system has interscorer and temporal reliability, validity, and convergence with scores from the original TAT-based scoring systems. Group and individual studies of political leaders, as well as studies of conflict escalation, illustrate its range of application. Overall, the performance of the new integrated running text system, which is nonreactive and can be applied to any naturally-occurring verbal material, suggests an alternative to the testing procedures of traditional personality research and assessment. Personality research is often limited by the way in which personality variables are measured. These limits are especially prominent in the study of individual lives. Often it is impossible to administer traditional psychological tests or carry out an interview. Examples include cases where testing is impossible, such as studies of political leaders, prominent persons, or historical figures who are no longer alive; and situations where testing is possible but undesirable because it is highly reactive and arouses test-taking or self-presentational sets, suspiciousness, defensiveness, or anxiety. Personality researchers, therefore, have begun to overcome this problem by developing indirect methods of measuring personality that can be applied “at a distance,” as a supplement to the more conventional methods of psychobiography (Hermann, 1968). In general, these methods are nonreactive, so that they can give repeated measurements over time without repeated testing; and they are flexible, so that they can measure personality characteristics in a variety of contexts. Because of widespread interest in understanding the relationship between personality and politics, at-a-distance techniques are probably most widely used in political psychology (e.g., Hermann, 1977), but they have also been applied to literary figures (Porter & Suedfeld, 1981), notable persons, and in fact to college students and other traditional groups of personality research subjects, as an alternative to traditional testing. Prominent among the variables measured in this way are motives (Hermann, 1979, 1980a, 1980b), integrative 1 A later version of this paper is published in A. J. Stewart, J. M. Healy, Jr., & D. J. Ozer (Eds.), Perspectives in personality: Approaches to understanding lives (pp. 59-89). London: Jessica Kingsley, 1991. I am grateful to Abigail Stewart for advice and discussion of several issues; to Joseph M. Healy, Jr. for advice in the final formulation of the scoring system and actual scoring; and to John W. Atkinson, Dan P. McAdams, David C. McClelland, and Joseph Veroff for generously providing data from their own previous research studies. This chapter was prepared with support from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, which support is gratefully

Nancy M. Henley

Papers

Balance and the grouping schema

Achievement and affiliation imagery in American fiction, 1901-1961.