Prototypes and scripts: The effects of alternative methods of processing information on rating accuracy

Abstract The relation between two different types of schematic processing and memory for events or leader behavior were investigated in a sample of 120 student observers who viewed the videotaped interaction of a five-person board meeting. It was hypothesized that two experimental factors, observational purpose and observers' knowledge about group goals, would influence the type of schema-guided attention, organization, and retrieval of information used. Results provided strong support for the hypotheses. First, subjects receiving a memory observational purpose or knowledge about group goals processed the information using a script schema, whereas subjects receiving an impression-formation observational purpose or no knowledge of the group goals used a leader prototype schema. Second, for meeting events, as prototypicality of the item increased, subjects were less accurate in recognizing which events were present, less confident, and took longer to respond. Third, for leader behavior, subjects were less accurate, less confident, and took longer to respond to absent prototypical items, and also were less accurate but more confident for present antiprototypical ones. The practical implications of these results are also discussed.