Psychological status of the script concept

Suggests that there has been growing interest within several subfields of psychology in the schematic nature of mental representations of real-world objects and events. One simple form of schema is the "script," embodying knowledge of stereotyped event sequences. The present author traces applications of the script concept in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and social psychology. Scripts are compared and contrasted with related concepts such as habits, roles, and games. The suggested theoretic function of the script concept is to unify central notions in learning, developmental, clinical, social, and cognitive psychology. The present concept, while still incompletely articulated, offers encouragement toward such a unification. Areas of accumulating empirical evidence and of needed theoretical extension of the script concept are indicated. (76 ref)