[MUSIC] Often, schemas refer to events, or sequences of actions. We have schemas for eating in a restaurant, for giving a lecture, going to a wedding, preparing a meal and taking a test. These are basic skeletal sequences of actions. Why skeletal? There are many ways of giving a lecture or preparing a meal. But the minimal sequence of actions is very much the same. Take meal preparation. The type of food will defer in different contexts. But the food will be processed, cut, sliced, peeled, and so on. Prepared, roasted, steamed, left raw, [INAUDIBLE]. The minimal sequences of steps that one is expected to take is very similar across a variety of situations. These schemas for events or sequences of actions are called scripts. Certain schemas serve as trigger cues for scripts. For example, suppose you identify a building as a restaurant. These simultaneously illicit expectation about behavior, what people do in a restaurant. And brings to mind a sequence of typical activities. The type of restaurants may change, the activities may be more or less formal, but the sequence of activities is more or less the same. In a particular culture and society we typically share beliefs about what to expect in recurrent social situations. Scripts typically include roles and rules. For example, a good mother's scripts includes a role that is a set of connected behaviors, obligations, beliefs and rules about how to behave in a particular situation. For example, how to discipline a child, or to feed a newborn, or how to talk to one's child. A script also include expectations about fulfilling the role, and how to react if the accompanying rules are violated. So which roles an individual fills or does not fill are identified through shared scripts. >> The majority of mothers in the region do not have proper breastfeeding practice. And it's important to understand why. We look at different countries, different contexts, and especially Congo and the plateau. Believe that, the colostrum, the first milk, which is yellow, is not good for the baby. So they will wait for 24 hours, sometimes more, until the breast milk is white to give to the child. And this is because they are advised by the elder women and the mother-in-law. And if they don't comply, they feel like they are bad mothers. We also needed to work on the image on how mothers categorize bad or good mother. And we have to change that narrative by saying that a good mother is a mother who is exclusively breast feeding his or her child. Because the child is healthy, it has less diarrhea, it has less pneumonia and it's really growing very well. So we needed to change that category of bad and good mothers. These scripts and rules vary depending on the specific culture. For example, in some cultures a good mother should hit a misbehaving child. In other cultures, corporal punishment is ruled out, and other sanctions, such as timeout, are thought to be more appropriate. In cultures where relatives live in a single household, there are very clear prescriptions about how a good wife should treat her in-laws. In cultures where the nuclear family predominates, dealing with in-laws is not strictly regulated, and there are no specific rules to follow. Many of the rules that are part with scripts are social norms. Think again of rules about how to treat in-laws, in an extended family. Not only a woman will be expected to serve, respect, and obey her mother in law. But she will be approved or disapproved, depending upon how well she performs such duties. Let us summarize the script activation process, which is as we have seen, also a norm activation process. You observe something, let's say a specific behavior or event. This observation will trigger the schema that most closely matches the observation. This schema that is activated shapes our interpretation and understanding of the situation. And some schemas serve as trigger cues for behavioral scripts. Remember the restaurant example. The schema of a restaurant immediately trigger the restaurant script. You know what you're supposed to do, how to behave in a restaurant and what to expect other patrons and waiters to do. Let me emphasize again, that the schemas and scripts are typically socially shared. And therefore shape the collective expectation we have about what is normal behavior and what is appropriate, or inappropriate behavior.
