According to the secret hopes of every outcast high
schooler, the college years will be better than the years before. Mainstream
media and our parents’ infinite wisdom teach us that the years following our
eighteenth birthday are some sort of period of magic, psychological growth
during which we “come in to our own” and really “find ourselves.” But what does
a “self” even constitute?
In the realm of social psychology, the answer to this
question is complex and varied. When considering the cognitive aspects of the
self, one of the topics I find most interesting is the idea of self-schemas.
Self-schemas are beliefs we hold about ourselves that help guide the manner in
which we process information relating to the self (Markus, 1977). In essence, self-schemas operate like
schematics for electrical equipment in that the schematics strip away all but
what the engineer deems to be the most vital information concerning the
functioning of the equipment. Self-schemas focus on the traits that we perceive
to be most central to our cognitive conception of self. Therefore, we are said
to be schematic for the traits we consider characteristic of ourselves, whereas
we are considered aschematic for traits we don’t believe characterize us well
or that we don’t value highly (Markus et al., 1987).
Recently, I unwittingly participated in an exercise that
highlighted my own self-schemas as well as those of my classmates. I’m certain
that this particular professor only intended the exercise to be a cutesy way to
get to know our new classmates on the first day rather than a social psychology
lesson, but I think the underlying psychology lesson is a far more interesting
story. The professor asked us to write
down what we considered to be our main attributes and to share our lists with
our neighbors. At the time I wasn’t able to see that we were actually writing
down a list of traits for which we were schematic. In all honesty, I was too
busy trying to read in between the lines of my neighbor’s list.
Ok, this guy says he
is “intelligent” and “dedicated” which must be code for “gets belligerently drunk on
weekends.”
Later, I had the realization that the reason I had to read
in between the lines at all was that all of my neighbors described themselves
in overwhelmingly positive terms. Whereas my neighbors were all schematic for
the sort of traits your parents would love to have describe your current love
interest, I turned out to be schematic for equal parts positive and negative
traits. I still can’t help but wonder if I’m the odd man out and every other
twenty-something “came in to their own” as wholesome, all-American boys and
girls when I wasn’t looking.
n = 455
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Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 35, 63–78.
Markus, H., Hamill, R., & Sentis, K. P. (1987). Thinking fat: Self-schemas for body weight and the processing of weight-relevant information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 17, 50–71.
