Mental representation

An individual's more-or-less coherent but usually implicit conception of reality. The conception consists largely of generalizations about self, others, and the experiential world constructed from emotionally significant past and current experience. Mental representations about a specific domain (e.g., beliefs and expectations about oneself, significant others, attachment figures, or interpersonal relationships) fall along at least three continua: (1) from being consciously recognized to being wholly unconscious, (2) from being internally consistent and organized to being inconsistent and perhaps chaotic, and (3) from being loosely or flexibly scripted to being tightly or rigidly ruleful. Along with one's emotional state--which both influences and is influenced by one's conception of reality-mental representations tend to shape the way in which individuals perceive, construe, and react to new experiences, including interpersonal relationships. Mental representations also influence what and how individuals store and remember experiences. Once created, individuals' mental representations of self, of significant others, attachment figures, and of the world around them tend to induce them to seek or to avoid certain situations and kinds of people. (See culture; personality subtheory)