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disfigurements which may be helpful in interpreting the results of this study. Rosser cites
Baldwin’s (1992) description of how the self-system is important in constructing templates
(schemata) which influence our interactions with other people. If new information fits within a
schema’s parameters, then specific assumptions, expectations and predictions will be
implemented by the schema to make sense of information and of how best to process it. For
more established schemata, the information they contain is more central, accessible and
frequently involved in cognitive processing and interpretation than non-schematic information.
In this way schemata aid processing, and also bias it towards what is expected. Once activated
the schema allocates how attention is distributed and how information is processed. The
potential for bias is considerable as the result of preferential attention to schematic information.
Established schemata are more heavily defined and less susceptible to integrating novel
information. They affect how we attend to, store, retrieve and ultimately perceive our
environment. Problems arise when biases cause dysfunctional preferential attention and
misevaluation of information, and as emotional element also associated, this can have
significant emotional implications (Greenberg & Safran, 1987). Self schemata are theorised by
their proponents as central, most salient, highly elaborated and strongly defined within the self
system, and are referred to as ‘affect laden’ due to their emotional as well as informational
content (Altabe & Thompson, 1996). Should a schema with a prevalent negative content gain
dominance in the processing system, information processing on all levels could be influenced
and manipulated to reinforce negative expectations. Building on the work of Moss and Carr
(2004), Rosser (2008) has described that for people with significant appearance-related
concerns, a maladjusted self schema would become highly central with negative generic
appearance information and processing biases chronically accessible – leading to a self
reinforcing cycle where appearance information is more frequently acknowledged, processed
and employed in processing and interpreting the world (see Figure 11).
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