Self-schema

The self-schema refers to a long lasting and stable set of memories that summarize a person's beliefs, experiences and generalizations about the self, in specific behavioral domains.[1] A person may have a self-schema based on any aspect of themselves as a person, including physical characteristics (body image), personality traits and interests, as long as they consider that aspect of their self to be important to their own self-definition. When someone has a schema about themselves they hyper focus on a trait about themselves and believe what they say to themselves about that specific trait. A self schema can be good or bad depending on what that person talks to themselves about and in what kind of tone.

For example, someone will have a self-schema of extroversion if they think of themselves as extroverted and also believe that their extroversion is central to who they are. Their self-schema for extroversion may include general self-categorizations ("I am sociable."), beliefs about how they would act in certain situations ("At a party I would talk to lots of people") and also memories of specific past events ("On my first day at university I made lots of new friends").

  1. ^ Markus, Hazel (1977). "Self-schemata and processing information about the self". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 35 (2): 63–78. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.2.63. ISSN 1939-1315.