Schemas Part 3: Schemas/Mental Model & Cognition
Expanding Our Understanding of the Mental Model Cognitive Shortcuts
Primary Category: Psychology of Scams
Author:
• Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
About This Article
Schemas, the mental frameworks that help us organize and interpret information, can profoundly influence how we store and retrieve memories. These frameworks help us process new experiences by fitting them into pre-existing categories. However, this can lead to memory distortion, as schemas can reshape how we recall past events.
For example, we may recall events in ways that align with our existing beliefs, even if those details never occurred. This process can result in selective memory, where information consistent with our schemas is remembered more vividly while conflicting details are forgotten or altered.
Over time, reliance on schemas can lead to misremembering events, especially if those events contradict long-held beliefs or ideas. This phenomenon underscores the role schemas play not only in shaping perception but also in influencing how we reconstruct past experiences.
In the case of trauma or scams, victims may adjust their schemas to make sense of distressing experiences, further distorting how they remember the event and impeding recovery.
Expanding Our Understanding of How Schemas or Mental Models Affect Other Aspects of Human Psychology
Introduction
Schemas or Mental Models are the internal representations of how we understand and interact with the world around us.
These mental models are not exact mirrors of reality but rather simplified frameworks formed from our accumulated experiences, observations, and interpretations. These mental models can be accurate or distorted, based on true or false information, and they shape how we see other people and situations.
For scam victims, these mental models play a significant role at both the beginning of the scam and during the scam, concealing the scammer’s true intentions and making it difficult to see the truth. After the scam, these mental models can even hinder the recovery process by preventing victims from accepting help.
“Sometimes you have to unlearn the things that you believe to be true. You don’t have to see the world the same way you’ve always seen it” — James Clear
Schemas and Decision-Making
Schemas play a significant role in shaping everyday decision-making, particularly in situations marked by uncertainty. These mental models provide shortcuts for interpreting information and making judgments based on past experiences and learned patterns, allowing us to process complex or ambiguous scenarios more efficiently. However, this reliance on schemas can also introduce cognitive biases that sway our choices, especially when the situation is unclear or unfamiliar.
Impact on Decision-Making
Schemas influence how we filter, interpret, and respond to new information, and this can both simplify and bias our decision-making process. In uncertain situations, schemas guide us by offering familiar frameworks, but they can also prevent us from fully analyzing new information or considering alternative perspectives. For example:
Simplifying Complex Decisions: When faced with a complicated decision, schemas help us by breaking it down into manageable components, guiding us toward what has worked in the past. For instance, if we have a schema that associates formal dress codes with professionalism, we may automatically choose to wear a suit to an interview, regardless of whether we’ve thoroughly considered the specific company culture.
Making Quick Judgments: In uncertain situations, schemas allow for quick decision-making based on previous experiences. For example, in social situations, we might rely on schemas about how different personality types behave to decide how to engage with someone new. This can be helpful in reducing decision fatigue, but it can also lead to overgeneralizations.
Cognitive Biases Linked to Schemas
Several cognitive biases that affect decision-making stem directly from our reliance on schemas. These biases often emerge because we prioritize information that fits into our existing schemas and ignore or distort information that contradicts them:
Confirmation Bias: This is one of the most common biases influenced by schemas. When we already have a schema in place about a person, situation, or concept, we are more likely to seek out information that confirms what we already believe and dismiss information that challenges it. For example, if someone has a schema that suggests all salespeople are manipulative, they may focus on moments that seem deceptive and ignore any signs of honesty.
Anchoring: Schemas also contribute to the anchoring bias, where individuals rely too heavily on the first piece of information (the “anchor”) they encounter when making decisions. If an initial offer in a negotiation fits into the schema of “what this product or service should cost,” it might heavily influence any subsequent negotiations, even if the anchor is not entirely relevant to the current situation.
Stereotyping: Stereotypes are schemas that oversimplify characteristics of a group. These can lead to biased decisions in everyday interactions, such as assuming that someone from a particular background will behave in a certain way. Stereotyping can influence hiring decisions, social interactions, and judgments about competence, often without conscious awareness.
Availability Heuristic: This bias, influenced by schemas, occurs when people make judgments based on how easily examples come to mind. For example, if someone frequently reads news stories about online scams, their schema of “online transactions” might lead them to overestimate the risk of fraud in every online purchase, even if the actual risk is low.
Overconfidence Bias: Schemas can lead to overconfidence in decision-making, especially when the schema has been successful in the past. Individuals may become overconfident in their ability to predict outcomes or understand situations because their schema has worked previously, even in scenarios where the context has changed or the schema is outdated.
Schemas offer a valuable tool for making decisions efficiently, particularly in situations of uncertainty. However, they can also lead to cognitive biases that distort our perception and influence our choices in ways that are not always rational or optimal. By being aware of these biases—such as confirmation bias, anchoring, and stereotyping—individuals can better understand how their schemas affect decision-making and work toward making more balanced, thoughtful choices, especially when the situation requires a deeper analysis. Recognizing and questioning our schemas can ultimately improve decision-making, particularly in uncertain or unfamiliar contexts.
Schemas and Expectations
Schemas control our expectations by creating mental frameworks that help us make sense of the world based on prior experiences, beliefs, and observations. These schemas shape how we predict and interpret new situations, interactions, and outcomes. While schemas are useful for quickly processing information, they can also lead us to rigid or biased expectations that may set us up to fail, especially when those mental models are inaccurate or maladaptive.
How Schemas Control Expectations
Confirmation Bias: Once a schema is established, it influences what we pay attention to. We tend to notice information that confirms our schemas while ignoring or dismissing information that contradicts them. This can prevent us from adapting to new situations where our existing schema may no longer apply. For example, someone with a negative schema about their abilities may selectively focus on failures while ignoring successes, reinforcing feelings of inadequacy.
Fixed Patterns: Schemas create expectations for how events should unfold based on past experiences. If new situations don’t match these expectations, people may experience cognitive dissonance—leading to stress or confusion. For instance, in relationships, someone with a schema of mistrust may expect betrayal, leading to self-sabotaging behaviors that cause the relationship to fail.
Overgeneralization: When schemas are too broad or rigid, they can lead us to make assumptions that are not applicable in every context. For instance, a person who has been scammed may develop a schema that all people are untrustworthy, leading to avoidance of meaningful relationships and missed opportunities for positive interactions.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Schemas can lead to behaviors that create the very outcomes they predict. If someone believes they are destined to fail (due to a schema developed from previous negative experiences), they may not put in the effort needed to succeed, thereby ensuring their failure.
Emotional Reactions: Schemas often carry emotional weight, and when expectations tied to those schemas are unmet, people may react with strong negative emotions like frustration, anger, or disappointment. These emotional responses can cloud judgment and make it difficult to recover from setbacks, ultimately reinforcing failure.
Setting Up for Failure
When we rely on maladaptive schemas that are based on inaccurate or overly negative views of the world, we set ourselves up for failure. For example:
In relationships, if a person believes, based on their schema, that they are unlovable, they may behave in ways that push people away, confirming their belief.
In career settings, someone with a failure schema might avoid taking risks or striving for promotions, limiting their professional growth.
Setting Up for Failure in Scams
In the context of scams, schemas play a critical role in setting victims up for failure by shaping their expectations of trust, relationships, and financial opportunities. Victims often have schemas that scammers exploit, such as the belief that people who express affection or offer help are genuine. When scammers engage victims in romance scams, for instance, they exploit relational schemas that involve trust, love, and emotional connection. These schemas may prevent victims from recognizing red flags or inconsistencies in the scammer’s behavior. As a result, the victim’s cognitive framework encourages them to continue investing emotionally and financially, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Victims of investment scams may have schemas that suggest financial success is tied to taking risks or trusting professionals. Scammers play on these schemas by portraying themselves as experts and presenting “too good to be true” investment opportunities. The victim’s schema about trusting financial advisors or making high-risk, high-reward decisions sets them up to fall for fraudulent schemes. This failure to recognize the deceit is often reinforced by the victim’s schema, which blinds them to the possibility of betrayal.
In the aftermath of a scam, the same maladaptive schemas that prevented victims from seeing the truth can hinder their recovery. Victims might avoid seeking help due to trust issues or self-blame, and their fixed mental models can keep them trapped in a cycle of denial and vulnerability to future scams. Recognizing and addressing these schemas is crucial for breaking free from this pattern.
Ultimately, to avoid the pitfalls of maladaptive schemas, individuals need to recognize when these mental models are influencing their expectations and be willing to challenge and adjust them based on new evidence and experiences. Therapy, particularly Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), is effective at helping people identify and change maladaptive schemas, thus allowing them to set healthier expectations and achieve more positive outcomes.
Schemas and Entitlement
Schemas and entitlement are closely related through the way that cognitive frameworks (schemas) influence beliefs about one’s rights, privileges, and how one should be treated by others. Schemas are mental models that help individuals process information and understand the world. They are shaped by past experiences, cultural norms, and personal interactions, forming a person’s expectations about themselves and others.
In the case of entitlement, individuals may develop schemas that foster a sense of superiority or special status, leading to the belief that they deserve certain privileges or exceptional treatment. This can manifest in the entitlement/grandiosity schema, a maladaptive schema where individuals feel they are more important than others, believe they deserve more resources or attention, or think they are exempt from the rules that govern other people’s behavior. For example, someone with an entitlement schema might expect others to cater to their needs without reciprocation.
This entitlement schema often leads to problematic behaviors and interpersonal difficulties because the individual’s unrealistic expectations about how they should be treated clash with reality. When those expectations are unmet, it can result in frustration, conflict, or aggression. The schemas supporting entitlement not only distort one’s self-view but also influence how they perceive social interactions, often justifying manipulative or self-centered behaviors.
Entitlement schemas are often developed during childhood in response to overindulgence, neglect, or a lack of boundaries. For instance, a child who consistently receives everything they ask for may develop a mental model that leads them to expect this treatment from everyone throughout their life.
Addressing entitlement requires recognizing these maladaptive schemas and reframing them, often through cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or schema therapy. These approaches help individuals challenge their distorted beliefs and replace them with healthier, more balanced perspectives.
By understanding the relationship between schemas and entitlement, individuals can learn to adjust their expectations, improving their interpersonal relationships and reducing conflict.
Adaptability of Schemas Over Time:
Schemas, while deeply ingrained cognitive frameworks, can be both adaptable and rigid depending on several factors. Generally, schemas are formed through repeated experiences and observations, meaning they can become more rigid over time as they are reinforced by new information that aligns with them. However, they are not fixed, and certain conditions or experiences can make them more flexible, allowing for change.
Factors Affecting Schema Flexibility
Life Transitions: Significant life changes, such as moving to a new country, starting a new job, or entering a new relationship, can expose individuals to different perspectives and experiences that challenge their existing schemas. These transitions can provide opportunities for schema adaptation as people are forced to reconcile new information with their existing mental models.
Traumatic Experiences: Trauma can severely disrupt existing schemas, especially those related to trust, safety, and control. For example, after experiencing a scam or betrayal, an individual’s previously optimistic schemas about human nature may shift toward more distrustful or cynical views. However, trauma can also create new rigid schemas, as individuals may form maladaptive beliefs to protect themselves from further harm.
Age and Brain Plasticity: Younger individuals generally have more adaptable schemas due to the brain’s higher level of plasticity during childhood and adolescence. In contrast, older individuals may have more rigid schemas as their mental models have been reinforced over time.
Cultural and Social Environment: Being part of a diverse or dynamic social environment can challenge existing schemas by exposing individuals to alternative worldviews and behaviors. In contrast, closed environments with little diversity may reinforce and rigidify schemas.
Techniques to Shift Harmful Schemas
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT is one of the most effective therapeutic approaches for changing maladaptive schemas. The process involves identifying negative schemas and challenging them with evidence-based thinking. Over time, patients are encouraged to replace harmful schemas with more adaptive, healthier ones. For example, someone with a “defectiveness” schema may learn to reframe their thoughts by recognizing their value and rejecting perfectionism.
Schema Therapy: This therapy, developed by Jeffrey Young, specifically targets long-standing schemas formed during childhood. It integrates aspects of CBT with elements of attachment theory and emotional-focused therapy, helping individuals address deep-rooted emotional patterns. It works particularly well for individuals with personality disorders or long-term emotional struggles.
Mindfulness and Meditation: Practicing mindfulness allows individuals to become more aware of their automatic thought patterns and schemas. Mindfulness helps individuals observe their schemas without immediately reacting to them, giving space to challenge their validity and create new interpretations.
Exposure to New Experiences: Actively seeking out new and diverse experiences can challenge and broaden existing schemas. For example, travel, new social relationships, or learning about different cultures can force individuals to reconsider their ingrained mental models.
Psychoeducation: Learning about how schemas function and their role in behavior can help individuals recognize when they are relying on outdated or harmful schemas. Psychoeducation can increase self-awareness and motivate individuals to adopt more adaptive schemas.
Journaling and Self-Reflection: Keeping a journal where individuals reflect on their reactions and thought patterns can help in identifying the schemas at play in different situations. By reviewing these thoughts, individuals can consciously work on reframing them to better fit reality.
Rigid vs. Flexible Schemas
Rigid Schemas: These tend to form from repeated reinforcement and are often resistant to change. For example, a person with a schema that “people cannot be trusted” may see betrayal in situations where none exists, leading to dysfunctional relationships.
Flexible Schemas: These are more adaptable, allowing individuals to adjust their mental models based on new information. Flexible schemas tend to result in more adaptive behaviors and healthier emotional responses to stress and change.
While schemas can become rigid over time, particularly through trauma or repeated reinforcement, they are not set in stone. Therapy, new experiences, and self-reflection are powerful tools in helping individuals reshape their schemas to better reflect reality, thus promoting emotional well-being and personal growth.
Schemas and Memory
Schemas play a significant role in how we store and retrieve memories by serving as cognitive frameworks that guide our attention, interpretation, and organization of information. These mental models help us make sense of new experiences by fitting them into pre-existing patterns, which can greatly influence the accuracy of our memories.
Influence on Memory Storage
When we encounter new information, our brains attempt to integrate it into existing schemas. If the new information aligns with what we already know or believe, it is more likely to be remembered and stored in a way that reinforces that schema. This is why we often remember events that are consistent with our beliefs or expectations more easily than those that contradict them. Schemas help us streamline and filter information, so only relevant details get encoded into memory, but this process is not always precise. Information that does not fit neatly into our schemas may be ignored, misinterpreted, or forgotten.
Impact on Memory Retrieval
During memory retrieval, schemas influence how we reconstruct past events. Memory is not a perfect record of experience but rather a reconstruction, which is vulnerable to distortion. When we retrieve memories, our schemas help fill in the gaps, sometimes altering or embellishing details to make the memory more consistent with our existing beliefs. This can lead to memory distortion, especially when recalling events that align with or contradict deeply held schemas. For instance:
Schema-consistent memories: We are more likely to remember details that support our schemas and may even unconsciously embellish memories to align with these frameworks. This selective memory can lead to confirmation bias, where individuals recall information that validates their pre-existing beliefs while ignoring or forgetting contradictory details.
Schema-inconsistent memories: When events strongly contradict a schema, individuals may distort or omit details to maintain cognitive coherence. This can result in memory suppression or altered recall, where conflicting information is adjusted to fit into the familiar mental model.
Memory Distortion and Cognitive Dissonance:
When individuals encounter events or information that sharply contradict their deeply held beliefs or schemas, they may experience cognitive dissonance—a state of mental discomfort caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. To reduce this dissonance, people might subconsciously distort their memories of the event to make them more consistent with their established schemas. For example, a scam victim who had trusted the scammer may alter their recollection of early warning signs to reduce the conflict between their prior belief in the scammer’s trustworthiness and the later realization of betrayal.
Eyewitness Memory and Schemas:
Research has shown that schemas can lead to memory errors in situations like eyewitness testimony. People are more likely to recall details that fit into their schemas about certain types of events or people, even if those details were never present. For instance, in a crime scenario, a person’s schema about typical criminal behavior may cause them to remember seeing a weapon or aggressive actions that were not part of the actual event.
False Memories:
In some cases, schemas can contribute to the formation of false memories. Because schemas help us fill in missing details, they can lead us to confidently “remember” details that never occurred, especially when recalling events that are conceptually consistent with the schema. This phenomenon occurs when individuals recall information that fits their schema but did not actually happen in reality, a process known as reconstructive memory.
Schemas help organize and structure our memories, but they also increase the likelihood of memory distortion, particularly in cases where the information aligns with or contradicts deeply held beliefs. They shape not only how we encode and store memories but also how we retrieve and reconstruct them, potentially leading to selective recall, false memories, or distortion. In contexts like scams or emotional trauma, schemas can complicate memory retrieval, either by altering the perception of past events to fit pre-existing beliefs or by obstructing the acknowledgment of contradictory information.
Schemas and Cognitive Distortions
Schemas and cognitive distortions are closely related in how they influence our perception and interpretation of the world, but they serve different functions and operate on different levels in cognitive psychology.
Schemas
Schemas are broader mental frameworks that help us organize and interpret information based on past experiences. They are like mental shortcuts that allow us to quickly process incoming information by fitting it into pre-existing categories. Schemas help individuals predict outcomes and navigate social interactions by using previously acquired knowledge. For example, if someone has a “trust schema” based on positive past experiences with trustworthy people, they will likely expect future interactions to be similarly trustworthy.
Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions, on the other hand, are specific, biased ways of thinking that negatively distort reality. They often arise from maladaptive schemas and lead to irrational thoughts and beliefs. Cognitive distortions are like mental “glitches” that skew one’s perception of a situation, often leading to anxiety, depression, or poor decision-making. Common examples of cognitive distortions include “catastrophizing” (expecting the worst to happen) or “black-and-white thinking” (seeing situations as all good or all bad).
Relationship Between Schemas and Cognitive Distortions
Schemas often serve as the foundation for cognitive distortions. If someone develops a maladaptive schema—such as a belief that they are unworthy or incompetent—this schema can lead to repeated cognitive distortions. For example, someone with a negative self-schema might frequently engage in “personalization” (blaming themselves for things outside their control) or “magnification” (exaggerating the importance of their mistakes). The schema feeds these distortions, reinforcing the negative cycle.
For scam victims, for instance, a maladaptive trust schema may lead to cognitive distortions such as overgeneralization, where they might believe that all people are trustworthy because their schema tells them that’s how relationships work. This makes them vulnerable to scams. Once deceived, their schema may shift to a negative one, leading to distortions like catastrophizing, where they might believe they can never trust anyone again.
In short, schemas provide the broader cognitive framework that shapes how we perceive and categorize the world, while cognitive distortions are specific errors in thinking that can arise from maladaptive schemas. Understanding both is essential for addressing issues like trauma, anxiety, or distorted perceptions, particularly for scam victims who may need to reevaluate their trust schemas and correct any cognitive distortions that arise from being victimized.
Schemas and Psychological Trauma
Psychological trauma has a profound impact on an individual’s schemas, often leading to the development of maladaptive schemas as a form of self-protection. These schemas serve as mental frameworks, helping people make sense of the world and anticipate future events based on past experiences. Trauma survivors, in an effort to protect themselves from further harm, may create new schemas that focus on perceived threats, abandonment, or betrayal, which can interfere with their emotional well-being and future relationships.
Impact of Trauma on Schemas
Distorted Worldview: Trauma survivors often develop a worldview that emphasizes danger, betrayal, or unpredictability. This alteration affects their cognitive, emotional, and social perception, leading them to see future situations through the lens of their past traumatic experiences. For example, someone who has been betrayed in a relationship may develop a schema that all future partners are untrustworthy, regardless of their actual behavior.
New Maladaptive Schemas: To cope with trauma, individuals might develop maladaptive schemas like distrust/abuse (believing others will hurt or take advantage of them) or emotional deprivation (feeling that their emotional needs will never be met). These schemas are designed to protect the person from experiencing further emotional harm but can be rigid and limiting. They may cause survivors to avoid close relationships or stay hypervigilant, constantly expecting betrayal or disappointment.
Hypervigilance and Control: After trauma, many survivors experience hypervigilance, a state of heightened awareness of potential threats. This can lead to schemas focused on control, where individuals may try to micromanage their environment or relationships to prevent future harm. While this coping mechanism aims to provide safety, it can become maladaptive by isolating the person from others or limiting their ability to trust.
Interference with Emotional Well-being and Future Relationships
Trust Issues: Maladaptive schemas often lead to difficulties in trusting others. A trauma survivor may believe that others will eventually hurt or abandon them, making it hard to form deep, meaningful connections. In romantic or social relationships, they might push people away to avoid being hurt, reinforcing a cycle of loneliness and isolation.
Emotional Dysregulation: Trauma-related schemas can also interfere with emotional regulation. Survivors may overreact to perceived slights or threats due to their hypervigilance or may shut down emotionally, believing that expressing their feelings will result in more pain. This emotional dysregulation can result in anxiety, depression, or difficulty navigating everyday stress.
Self-Sabotage: Maladaptive schemas, particularly those related to self-worth (e.g., defectiveness/shame schemas), can lead to self-sabotage. Individuals might believe they are unworthy of love, success, or happiness, causing them to undermine their own efforts or reject opportunities that could enhance their well-being. For example, they might avoid entering into healthy relationships, believing they don’t deserve love or fearing inevitable rejection.
Recovery and Changing Maladaptive Schemas
Therapeutic interventions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Schema Therapy can help trauma survivors recognize and shift these maladaptive schemas. Therapy helps individuals understand how these cognitive frameworks were formed as survival mechanisms but are no longer helpful. Through therapy, individuals learn to challenge the beliefs underlying their schemas, reframe their thinking, and adopt healthier cognitive patterns that allow them to engage in more fulfilling relationships and live with greater emotional balance.
Psychological trauma can cause individuals to develop new maladaptive schemas that, while intended to protect them from further harm, often interfere with their emotional well-being and relationships. Recognizing and addressing these distorted cognitive frameworks through therapy can help trauma survivors heal and regain control over their lives.
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We often use the term ‘scam victim’ in our articles, but this is a convenience to help those searching for information in search engines like Google. It is just a convenience and has no deeper meaning. If you have come through such an experience, YOU are a Survivor! It was not your fault. You are not alone! Axios!
Statement About Victim Blaming
Some of our articles discuss various aspects of victims. This is both about better understanding victims (the science of victimology) and their behaviors and psychology. This helps us to educate victims/survivors about why these crimes happened and to not blame themselves, better develop recovery programs, and to help victims avoid scams in the future. At times this may sound like blaming the victim, but it does not blame scam victims, we are simply explaining the hows and whys of the experience victims have.
These articles, about the Psychology of Scams or Victim Psychology – meaning that all humans have psychological or cognitive characteristics in common that can either be exploited or work against us – help us all to understand the unique challenges victims face before, during, and after scams, fraud, or cybercrimes. These sometimes talk about some of the vulnerabilities the scammers exploit. Victims rarely have control of them or are even aware of them, until something like a scam happens and then they can learn how their mind works and how to overcome these mechanisms.
Articles like these help victims and others understand these processes and how to help prevent them from being exploited again or to help them recover more easily by understanding their post-scam behaviors. Learn more about the Psychology of Scams at www.ScamPsychology.org
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The information provided in this and other SCARS articles are intended for educational and self-help purposes only and should not be construed as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.
Note about Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices have the potential to create psychological distress for some individuals. Please consult a mental health professional or experienced meditation instructor for guidance should you encounter difficulties.
While any self-help techniques outlined herein may be beneficial for scam victims seeking to recover from their experience and move towards recovery, it is important to consult with a qualified mental health professional before initiating any course of action. Each individual’s experience and needs are unique, and what works for one person may not be suitable for another.
Additionally, any approach may not be appropriate for individuals with certain pre-existing mental health conditions or trauma histories. It is advisable to seek guidance from a licensed therapist or counselor who can provide personalized support, guidance, and treatment tailored to your specific needs.
If you are experiencing significant distress or emotional difficulties related to a scam or other traumatic event, please consult your doctor or mental health provider for appropriate care and support.
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