2.2: Self-Schemas

The concept of a social self can be traced back to William James over a century ago when he coined “social me”—referring to aspects of self-knowledge and the impact of interactions with others across social contexts.

During the process of understanding one’s self, an individual may look inward, through introspection, to focus their attention. While gathering self-knowledge, they may “see” a version of their life’s story and may then realize that their self-narrative is constructed and remodeled based on different social experiences.

If self-knowledge is, in large part, a product of construal, its reliability can be called into question. For instance, the person might be motived to hide or change aspects of themselves, such as they honestly dislike reading, but their partner who likes to read keeps buying them more books.

Inaccuracies of self-knowledge can also occur because someone can’t access mental processes that provide insight into the self—that is, her many thoughts and feelings are nonconscious, arising outside of awareness. As a result, they may create alternative accounts that appear plausible, like she thinks she’s more athletic than studious.

While an individual can learn skills and note experiences of their own inner states to assess their internal traits, close acquaintances are reportedly better at judging the other person’s external traits by observing overt behavioral states.

Whether accurate or not, all of this self-knowledge must somehow be stored in memory, presumably in cognitive structures called self-schemas—mental representations that someone draws from when answering the question, “Who am I?”.

Now, in this circumstance, she activates her “healthy” schema, which influences her decisions on what health-conscious groceries to buy and what wholesome restaurants she can frequent.

Similar to other schemas, including those for recurring events and objects, possessing multiple relevant self-schemas can help everyone navigate and interpret information in a complex world.