Stereotypes In Cognitive Psychology

Social cognition studies how cognitive processes which are carried out automatically in the human mind affects social behaviour, (Hogg & Vaughan, 2011) hence it merges social psychology with aspects of cognitive psychology. (Augoustinos & Walker, 1995) Schemas are a central part of social cognition. Schemas are cognitive structures that contain some imagined or real perception regarding different places and objects, social groups, etc “Schemas lend a sense of order, structure and coherence to a social world that would otherwise be highly complex and unpredictable” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2011, p. 60) There are many factors effect how, when and what schemas are used such as different social settings, which induces different schema uses; how often that

They are treated like a homogenous group even though they are more diverse than the traditional student population, which results in most of the stereotypes being invalid and incorrect. The stigmatisation due to the stereotypes does not only come from individuals but also from organisations such as the APA. These negative stereotypes are sometimes shared my the mature students themselves, where they see themselves as less capable to study in higher education, which may lead to self-fulfilling prophecy and them actually performing worse than they actually can. Studies show however that most of these negative stereotypes are unfounded. (Richardson & King, 1998) One stereotype is that mature students have trouble with time-management, however mature students have better study habits and better total time management skills better time management skills than regular students. (Trueman and Hartley, 1996) Another stereotype that mature students’ method of studying is not appropriate for higher education, however research by Richardson (1995) suggests that it is contrary, i.e. mature students employ better studying techniques. Another stereotype is that mature students perform worse academically or fail to finish their studies more than regular students. Research suggests that while there is some difference in the marks awarded in different subjects, for instance regular students obtained higher marks in subjects such as science, engineering and architecture while mature students obtained higher marks in subjects such as humanities and the arts. However there was no overall significant difference neither in the final classification awarded nor in the completion rate (Carlan, 2001; Solomon & Gordon,