Cognitive science Essay
Abstract
The script theory is an essential psychology and cognitive theory desecrating effects like fear and joy. These are primary motivators of the personality and behavior functions, and structure is understood in terms of self-defining scripts and scenes. Script theory is related to schemata theory. Thus, it is the correct theory describing how human minds organize knowledge about the knowledge and the world. Schema always explains a pattern of behavior or thought that classifies the information categories and their correlations in psychology and cognitive science. Nonetheless, Script theory includes a sequence of events or actions important for achieving a goal. Thus, it describes how schemata affect the attention and assimilation of new information. Even in the face of conflicting information, individuals always strive not to change their schemata. This paper explains how to script theory describes the way human minds organize knowledge and the world. It also explores the relationship between the script and schemata theories.
Keywords: Script theory, Cognitive, Schema, Psychology
Cognitive science Essay
Script theory is a mental concept similar to the schema. However, it comprises a series of events or actions essential for achieving a goal. It is a psychological theory suggesting that human behavior falls into patterns referred to as scripts. It is referred to as a script because it functions the same way a written script works by offering a series of actions. Tomkins Silvan coined the theory as an enhancement of his effect theory, which proposed that the emotional responses of human beings to stimuli are constantly falling into groups referred to as effects. Tomkins realized that the purely biological effects responses might be followed by the knowledge and what individuals cognitively do. Therefore, it is true that the script theory is the perfect theory to describe how human minds organize knowledge about the person and the world.
Script theory is related to the schema. In cognitive science and psychology, schema always explains a pattern of behavior or thought that classifies the information categories and their correlations. Also, the schema is a mental construct of inflexible ideas, a structure signifying some world aspects, or a system of perceiving and organizing new information. Script theory describes how schemata affect the attention and assimilation of new information. That means the individuals are more likely to realize things that fit plans while re-constructing inconsistencies to the schema as distorting or exceptions them to fit (Mansell, 2009). Even in the face of conflicting information, individuals always strive not to change their schemata. Also, it helps individuals in understanding the world and constantly changing environment. People will always arrange new ideas and views into scripts because many circumstances do not need complicated thoughts when using schema since automatic thought is required. People use schemata to organize the knowledge they see at that moment and provide a framework for future understanding. Therefore, script theory is essential in describing how human minds organize knowledge about the person and the world.
The fundamental analysis unit in script theory is referred to as scene. The scene is the series of events connected by the effects prompted during the experience of these events. Individuals’ practical experience falls into patterns that may be joined together depending on the conditions like intensity and degree of the experience, type of person, and place involved (Pfeifer & Scheier, 2001). Also, the patterns that comprise scripts that inform people’s behavior to minimize adverse effects and maximize positive effects can be joined together.
Script theory helps in retrieving and encoding memories. Many of the typical situations do not need much exhausting processing. Thus, individuals can speedily act without effort and organize their ideas into scripts (Van Gelder, 1995). However, the process is always less accurate. As a result, individuals may acquire illusory correlations. It is the trend of forming overestimated and inaccurate associations between scripts, mainly when it is unique.
However, schema can hamper and influence information uptake (proactive interference) like when the available stereotypes, encouraging little or limited expectations and discourses (prejudice), making a person remember or see something that has not happened because it is more believable depending on their schema (Pfeifer & Scheier, 2001). For instance, if an appropriately dressed and respected individual draws a knife or a gun in a public place, then the schema of the audience may always lead them to remember that particular person drawing a knife. Such memory misinterpretation has been demonstrated. Therefore, it explains and describes how individuals form and absorb new information and how they affect them.
Different schemata are related, and they can be applied for a piece of similar information. Schemata are believed to have an activation level in which they can spread among other interrelated schemata. Some factors affecting schemata selection include priming and emotion. Current activation and accessibility. Accessibility is how schema enters the mind and is always determined by personal expertise and experience (Rogers & McClelland, 2004). It can be employed as a shortcut for cognition as it enables the most common description to be selected. With priming, a concise unrecognized stimulus temporarily gives enough stimulation to the schemata to succeed with unclear information. Even though this suggests the likelihood of subconscious messages, the priming impact is so brief that it is not easy to notice it under normal conditions.
The data that falls in individuals’ schema is effortlessly remembered and integrated into how they perceive the world. Nonetheless, if new information observed does not match an individual’s schema, several things may happen. Most importantly, an individual may quickly forget or ignore the new information. Forgetting or ignoring new information may occur on an oblivious level. Most often, a person may not even recognize the new information. Also, individuals may understand the new information to amplify how they must alter their schema. For instance, an individual believes that chickens do not lay an egg (Moser & Vander Nat, 1995). Then they see a chicken laying an egg. Rather than altering the part of their brain that thinks that hens do not lay eggs, there is a possibility for them believing that the animal they saw laying an egg is not actual chicken. This example can be referred to as disconfirmation bias. It is the likelihood of setting a high standard for the information that contradicts an individual’s expectation. Besides, when the observed information cannot be forgotten or ignored, an individual will develop a new schema or alter the existing one. The process of developing a new schema or altering the existing one is referred to as accommodation. The accommodation allows an individual to perceive and understand the world according to the new information observed.
Script theory properly explains the enhancement of human understanding and knowledge. Jean Piaget, the author of schema theory, believed that knowledge was developed on a mental framework, and he proposed that individuals develop mental structures by assimilating and accommodating information. Accommodation involves adjusting the old scheme or writing a UK dissertation assignment pro papers masters thesis writing – creating a new schema that fits better the current environment. It can also be illuminated as putting solid restrictions on the existing schema (Vernon, 2014). Accommodation always occurs in the failure of assimilation. Assimilation can be interpreted as the use of existing schema to interpret the world. Individuals in their daily operations consistently apply schemas; thus, they naturally assimilate and accommodate the information. For instance, if the hen has brown feathers, individuals can develop a schema believing that only hens with brown feathers can lay eggs. In the future, this schema will be either removed or changed.
Assimilation involves the reuse of the existing schema to fit the new observed information. For instance, an individual sees a dog that is not familiar. They will incorporate the information on their dog schema. But if the dog behaves in a weird and in a manner that does not seem like a dog, then there will be accommodation whereby a different schema is created for that specific dog. With assimilation and accommodation comes the idea of balance (Purves, 2010). Equilibrium is described in script theory as a balanced cognition state when schemata can explain what it perceives and sees. The new information which does not fit in the current schema is described as a disequilibrium state. For the child’s development, disequilibrium is an unpleasant condition. When it occurs, it means that the children are frustrated and will make an effort to restore the consistency of their cognitive construct through accommodation. When the new information is absorbed, then assimilation of the information will continue until they realize that they must make a current adjustment for it later. Still, for now, the child will be at an equilibrium state. That process is referred to as equilibration, and it is explained as the state where individuals move from the equilibrium state to the disequilibrium and then back to equilibrium.
Furthermore, an individual’s new schema can be an enhancement of the schemata into a subgroup. Expansion of schemata allows the new information to be integrated into the current beliefs without any contradiction. An instance of this social psychology is the combination of an individual’s beliefs concerning a woman and their opinions on business (Purves, 2010). When women are not believed to be in business, and then the individual meets one in business, there will be a new subtype of businesswomen. The observed information will be integrated into that particular subtype. The activation of the schema of business or women makes the businesswoman schema available. The existence of a new schema will make the beliefs about those in business and women continue. Instead of altering the schema concerning business people or women, there are subtypes on its group.
Additionally, schema concerning oneself is always based on past and present memories. Memories are enclosed in the light of an individual’s self-conception. For instance, individuals with positive self-schema selectively join in satisfying information and reject unpleasing information. The significance of the pleasing information is exposed to innate encoding, thus, superior memory (Maes, 1993). Even if the encoding is equally superior for both the negative and positive response, the positive one has a higher chance of being recalled. Besides, recalls may be twisted to be more favorable. For instance, individuals usually remember exam grades to be higher than they were in an absolute sense. Besides, if individuals have negative self-schema, recalls are usually unfair in that they justify the negative self-view. For instance, individuals with low self-worth have a higher possibility of remembering negative information than positive information about their lives. Therefore, memories try to be unfair in the manner that justifies the pre-existing self-view of an individual.
There are main inferences of self-schema that are always divided into three. First, oneself information is always processed more efficiently and faster, specifically when the information is consistent. Second, individuals remember and retrieve information that is relevant to the self-schema of an individual. For example, a child with a specific self-view prefers to stay with people who view them according to their existing schema. They prefer individuals with views that are consistent with their schema (Oosterwijk et al., 2012). Third, students who find themselves staying with individuals whose perceptions towards them are inconsistent with their self-schema have a high chance of leaving their roommates and finding a new one even if their ideas are positive. It can be described as self-verification. Many pieces of research have shown that automatically stimulated negative self-views to contribute to depressions to a more considerable extent. The schemas are the same kind of cognitive constructs as stereotypes reviewed by researchers of prejudice. For instance, they are automatically activated, well-rehearsed, influential towards emotions, judgments, and behaviors, bias information processing, and challenging to change. Therefore, self-schema helps individuals to understand their world and their minds to organize information.
Besides, self-schemata can be self-preserving. It can signify a specific role in the community that is formed based on stereotypes. For instance, if a parent tells one of their daughters that they look like hoyden, the daughter will respond by choosing to behave and conduct activities linked to a tomboy. Equally, if a parent tells the daughters that they look like a princess, they will behave and choose activities linked to females. The examples are the self-schema that becomes self-preserving when an individual decides to select an activity or behave in a manner they are expected to rather than following their desires.
According to script theory, beliefs appear to have a basic level (often referred to as natural level) of particularity. For instance, if an individual is shown a green, roundish palatable object that came from a tree, they will always categorize the object as a fruit, a delicious green fruit, or a delicious fruit. However, many people will characterize the object as a fruit. The most natural preferred level is a fruit. However, this natural level can be influenced by different expertise and context (Bernstein, 2008). For example, suppose the object was placed on a fruit stand that only sells fruits. It might be described as a delicious green fruit to differentiate it from other fruits surrounding it. When individuals are shown objects or pictures, they recognize the picture at a natural level faster than they recognize it at a lower or higher level. Therefore, objects and pictures tend to be identified first at their natural level. After being recognized at their basic level, they are then categorized into lower or higher-level groups. Therefore, the green roundish, palatable object will be first recognized as a fruit. Only if necessary will it then be described as a delicious red fruit or apple.
In a nutshell, script theory is a psychological and cognitive theory proposing that human behaviors fall into patterns referred to as scripts. It is the perfect theory to describe how human minds organize knowledge about the person and the world. The theory is connected to schemata. In cognitive science and psychology, schema always explains a pattern of behavior or thought that classifies the information categories and their correlations. That is why script theory helps organize the knowledge of an individual and helps understand the world. However, it comprises a series of events or actions essential for achieving a goal. Script theory describes how schemata affect the attention and assimilation of new information. Even in the face of conflicting evidence, individuals always strive not to change their schemata.
References
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