What Are Schemas? A Clear History of Where They Come From and How the Brain Actually Learns

Stephanie Underwood, RSW

This post provides a thorough overview of the origins of the word Schemas and the surrounding theories.

What Are Schemas? And Who Actually Invented Them?

Surprisingly, the word “schema” isn’t commonly used in psychology, therapy, and online mental health spaces. I say surprisingly because schemas, in this case early maladaptive schemas, are the reason why we find ourselves repeating the same old patterns over again, and the reason why we view ourselves, others, and the world the way that we do.

Schemas are not objects in the brain, and they are not things we can directly observe. They are theoretical constructs used to explain consistent patterns in how humans perceive, interpret, remember, and respond to the world. To understand schemas properly, we need to step back and look at where the idea actually came from.

The Origins of Schemas: Frederic Bartlett and Reconstructive Memory

The concept of schemas was first introduced by Frederic Bartlett in 1932 in his book Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology.

Bartlett was studying memory, not trauma or mental health. What he noticed was that people do not store exact copies of events. Instead, when recalling information, they consistently distorted details in predictable ways based on prior knowledge, cultural expectations, and past experience.

To explain this, Bartlett proposed schemas as organizing frameworks that shape how information is encoded and reconstructed. At this stage, schemas were largely neutral. They helped explain why a chair is recognized as a chair, why stories follow familiar structures, and why unfamiliar information is unconsciously reshaped to fit what we already know.

Importantly, Bartlett did not claim schemas were literal structures in the brain. They were explanatory models inferred from behavior.

Schemas in Development: Jean Piaget and Learning Through Interaction

In the mid-20th century, Jean Piaget expanded schema theory into developmental psychology. Piaget was interested in how the human mind develops over time, particularly in children.

For Piaget, schemas were not beliefs but action-based structures. Early schemas emerge through sensorimotor interaction with the environment. An infant’s schema is not a thought like “the world is safe,” but a pattern such as “when I cry, someone comes” or “when I grasp, the object moves.”

Piaget described learning through two processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when new experiences are interpreted through existing schemas, while accommodation happens when schemas change because reality no longer fits. This framed schemas as dynamic, self-updating systems rather than fixed mental content.

What Piaget did not address in depth was what happens when the environment is unsafe, inconsistent, or emotionally threatening. That gap becomes important later.

Learning Before Meaning: Conditioning and Association

Before schemas ever become meaning-laden, learning begins at a more basic level through conditioning. In the late 1890s, Ivan Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning, showing that organisms learn predictive associations between stimuli. A neutral cue could come to elicit a response simply by repeatedly predicting something important.

Later, B.F. Skinner expanded this work through operant conditioning in the 1930s–1950s, showing how behaviors are shaped by reinforcement and punishment. Which makes a lot of sense when we think about pain and pleasure. Human beings want to feel good - they don’t want to experience pain because it hurts.

At this level, learning does not involve beliefs or conscious meaning. It is bodily, automatic, and predictive. Conditioning explains how responses get wired; it does not yet explain how those responses become generalized expectations about the self or the world.

The Brain Learns Physically: Hebb and Neural Plasticity

A major shift occurred in 1949 when Donald Hebb proposed that learning occurs through changes in neural connectivity. His work suggested that repeated co-activation of neurons strengthens their connections, laying the foundation for modern theories of neural plasticity.

This idea was later empirically supported by the work of Eric Kandel, whose research from the 1960s onward demonstrated that learning physically alters synapses and that emotionally significant experiences are consolidated more strongly.

Neuroscience still does not point to a “schema location” in the brain. Instead, it shows that learning creates stable patterns of neural activation distributed across networks.

The Brain as a Prediction Machine: Modern Neuroscience

More recent models, particularly those developed by Karl Friston in the 2000s, describe the brain as a prediction-generating system. According to predictive processing models, the brain continuously generates expectations about the world and updates them based on prediction error.

From this perspective, schemas can be understood as high-level predictive models. They are the brain’s best guess about what usually happens, built from repeated experience. When predictions are repeatedly confirmed, they become automatic and resistant to change.

Where Meaning Enters: From Neutral Schemas to Relational Schemas

Not all schemas involve meaning. A schema for a chair is largely functional and emotionally neutral. Meaning enters when schemas involve the self, relationships, attachment figures, safety, or threat.

When experiences are emotionally charged, repeated, or occur during developmentally sensitive periods, schemas become meaning-laden. They stop being about “what is this?” and start answering “what does this mean for me?” and “what should I expect?”

This is where later clinical models, including schema therapy and attachment theory, pick up. They are not describing a different mechanism, but the same learning and prediction processes operating in high-stakes relational contexts.

What Schemas Actually Are

Schemas are not beliefs, labels, or fixed traits. They are not objects in the brain. They are generalized patterns of learning and prediction that emerge from conditioning, neural plasticity, and repeated interaction with the world.

They help stabilize reality, reduce cognitive load, and guide behavior. When formed around safety, connection, and self-worth, they can profoundly shape emotional life and relationships.

Understanding schemas this way strips away mystique and puts them back where they belong: as adaptive learning processes that can become maladaptive under certain conditions.