How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model

A schematic model of political belief systems based on recent research in social and cognitive psychology is developed. We show that schema theory has the ability to bridge the gaps among the major competing approaches to the study of mass belief systems as well as provide direction for new research on the structure and functioning of political beliefs. An initial test of the theory, done with Q methodology, is reported and the results provide consistent support for the general predictions of schema theory as applied to political beliefs.