The Role of Abstract and Exemplar-Based Knowledge in Self-Judgments: Implications for a Cognitive Model of the Self

Eliot Smith presents some important implications for social cognition of a trend in cognitive psychology away from models that rely primarily on abstract representations toward those that incorporate storage and use of both abstraction and specific instances. A greater emphasis on specific instances as mediators of the social judgment process is long overdue, and the methodological principle Smith outlines should prove useful in developing models that reflect this change.