Cognitive schemas: how is our thinking organized?

Our identity and way of thinking are formed by systems of interrelated concepts.

The concept of cognitive schema is one of the most important concepts used in psychology today, regardless of whether it is used in intervention and therapy or in research. Thanks to it, it is possible to create theories about different patterns of behavior, biases and prejudices, and types of beliefs that define each person.

In a way, each of us have our own system of cognitive schemasand these are expressed in what we say and do. They are part of our identity and the way we have become accustomed to "read" reality.

In this article we will see what exactly are cognitive schemas and how they affect our way of thinking, either consciously or unconsciously.

What are cognitive schemas?

Part of our identity is based on the way we mentally organize all those concepts, beliefs and learning that we use to live day to day. In fact, if the human mind is so complex and fascinating, it is among other things because it can find an almost infinite number of ways to generate interpretations about the world. ways of generating interpretations about realityeach of them having a relative internal coherence.

However, it is difficult for the same person to maintain many distinct patterns of behavior at the same time. In practice, in fact, this would indicate that there is no behavioral style, but that what defines the actions of that individual is purely and simply chaos, unpredictability. Reality, on the other hand, tells us that our way of being follows relatively stable guidelines. Those who avoid talking to strangers are not likely to move from one day to the next and become the center of attention, for example.

Our way of interpreting the world, our identity and social relationships is not random and constantly changing, but follows certain patterns that give it stability over time and in the different contexts through which we pass.

Now then... what is behind these "rails" that seem to guide our behavior? Part of this "psychological structure" which gives stability to what we do derives precisely from what we think.

We don't normally act in a way that goes against our beliefs, unless we are forced to. And cognitive schemas are precisely the designs of that circuit through which our thinking and opinions usually go.

However, the idea that our way of interpreting reality is based on something we call "cognitive schemas" does not mean that these are an element locked in our head, isolated from the outside. In reality, their configuration is conditioned by the cultural influences to which we are exposed, as well as by specific day-to-day experiences (although in most cases these kinds of "traces" are almost imperceptible). Cognitive processes and external events affect each other, in a bidirectional relationship.

Moving from one concept to another: a system of thought.

In a nutshell, cognitive schemas are systems of relationships between concepts that make it more likely to move from certain ideas to others. For example, if for us the concept of consuming animal meat is related to the concept of "bad", it is difficult for us to think of the concept of "art" when watching a bullfighting spectacle.

Another example would be someone who fervently believes in the Christian God. For this person, it is easy to see the hand of an engineer behind the design of the elements found in nature. Consequently, the concept "nature" will be related to a concept that defines only a part of what exists, and not everything, so he will believe that there is something beyond matter: divinity.

For an atheist, on the other hand, the concept of "nature" is much more likely to be related to the concept of "what exists", since for him there is nothing but matter in motion.

To conclude, someone who has very low self-esteemIn this case, he will probably have problems in combining his self-concept with the idea of "success". That is why he will learn an attribution style whereby he will interpret his achievements as mere luck, something that could have happened to anyone. On the other hand, he will also be more likely to interpret the misfortunes that happen to him as if they were his fault, even in cases where he takes responsibility for the aggressions and attacks by others; this is something that is often seen in victims of abuse.

Thus, cognitive schemas cause us to move from concept A to B with from concept A to B more easily than from A to Gand thus generate "networks" of strongly interconnected concepts that maintain a certain coherence.

Cognitive dissonance

The fact that we live by interpreting things through cognitive schemas has positive aspects, but there are also negative ones. For example, these psychological schemas endow our mental processes with a certain rigidity.. This, at best, can lead to a certain difficulty in understanding other people's perspective, or, possibly, in carrying out creative tasks (research on creativity is complicated); and at worst, it leads to dogmatism.

However, there is another phenomenon that is also a consequence of the robustness of cognitive schemas: cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon whereby we feel discomfort when holding two ideas that are contradictory to each other..

These are pros and cons that we must know how to manage, since it is not possible to do without cognitive schemas. What we can do is try to make them more useful than problematic. In fact, cognitive therapy, based on the ideas of Aron Beck, is based on this principle: modifying beliefs to make them serve us, and not us them.