INDICATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCHEMATA FROM THOUGHTS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTS

Information-oriented, person-environment-behavior frameworks ordinarily assume that memory-based environmental knowledge is organized into environmental 'representations', but to some extent, previous research has questioned the plausibility of such a supposition. This discussion examines peoples' spontaneous 'what comes to mind' thoughts activated by three different environments, for what they might reveal about internal information regarding the three settings. The discussion also addresses two inquiries. The first is concerned with structural implications and asks to what extent peoples' thoughts about attributes of environments are conceptually patterned, and thus suggestive of schema-like representations. The second focuses on differences and asks whether attribute thoughts about a specific environment are likely to be the same for all adult individuals of a given social system. For the three environments investigated, findings tend to support the current assumption that individuals cognitively organize internal attribute-information into schema-like representations as guides perhaps for immediate environmental apprehensions. More than one distinctive environmental scheme seems to be in use for at least two of the environments examined, even among individuals in a sample of only 93 adults. The study, in its overall method, also offers a design for working with verbal form 'data'. © 1990 Academic Press Limited.