Gladys, who is an accountant, often wonders why people are surprised when they find out that she is also a skydiving instructor on the weekends. the most obvious explanation is that people form cognitive schemas for different types of people and occupations. the use of these types of assumptions is called:

When people make assumptions about other people, such as in the case of Gladys, this is known as implicit personality theory or automatic assumption. This is often what happens when one person forms certain opinions about another person when they actually have very little knowledge about that person. One theory is that we are often not even aware that these assumptions are taking place in our minds.