Cultural Schema Theory - History

History

Cultural Schema Theory may be a relatively new theory, but it is not a new concept. The idea of schemas existing as ideal types in the mind dates back all the way back to Plato (see also Schema and Schema (psychology)) . In the 19th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant developed the idea that every person’s experiences are gathered in memory, forming higher order concepts. In the 1920s Piaget’s work investigated schemas in infants. In the 1930s Bartlett tested memory for schemas. From the 1970s to the 1990s, many researchers obtained loads of evidence showing that people’s behaviors are deeply embedded to what they store in their brains. Through these studies researchers learned that human behavior relies heavily on past experiences and the knowledge stored in one’s brain. Research also revealed that schemas operate at many different levels. The experiences which are unique to individuals allow them to acquire personal schemas. Societal schemas may emerge from a group’s collective knowledge and are represented across the minds in a society, enabling people to think as if they are one mind (Malcolm & Sharafian, 2002). However, when one’s cultural environment provides experiences to which every member of that culture is exposed, his/her experiences allow every member to acquire cultural schemas (Nishida, 1999). Cultural schemas are conceptual structures which enable individuals to store perceptual and conceptual information about his/her culture and interpret cultural experiences and expressions. If a person is not equipped with the appropriate cultural schema, s/he may not be able to make sense of culturally unfamiliar situations (Malcolm & Sharafian, 2002).