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Synonyms

Affective schema; Emotional reactivity

Definition

An emotional schema is a particular totality of primarily affectively determined modes of responses and feelings toward people and events that can be transferred onto analogous situations and similar people. Emotional schemas are tightly integrated slot-filler structures of eliciting situations, subjective feelings, and expressive and autonomic activity. Basically we can distinguish between innate emotional schemas, cultural-specific emotional schemas, and individual emotional schemas. These groups of emotional schemas differ with regard to the commitment of their effects.

Theoretical Background

Schema theory not only refers to cognition and information processing but rather also to emotions (Eckblad 1981). It was Piaget (1945/1952) who used the term “affective schemas” (synonymously with emotional schema) – not alternatively to “cognitive schemas” but rather as totalities of affectively determined responses and feelings to...

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Correspondence to Norbert M. Seel .

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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Seel, N.M. (2012). Emotional Schema. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_361

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_361

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

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