A two-session experiment was conducted to test the relationship of self-schemata to the processing of attitudinal information. In Session I, subjects were classified as either Religious (n=20) or Legal (n=19) in their schemata, using weighted response times to personality trait words on slides. In Session II, these subjects heard one of four tapes. Two Topics (Capital Punishment and Abortion) were crossed with two Message Perspectives (Religious and Legal) to produce these tapes. After listening to the message, subjects rated the message's persuasiveness, listed their thoughts during the tape, and responded to a surprise memory recognition test. As predicted, individuals whose self-schemata were congruent with the message perspective found the tapes more persuasive. This effect was strongest for the topic of Capital Punishment. Only when the topic was Capital Punishment did the same Schema x Message Perspective interaction result in (a) more thoughts listed, (b) greater reliance upon the content of the message, and (c) more topic-relevant thoughts. Biased recall of unpresented, but schema-related, arguments was not found. Two theoretical models for explaining the data are discussed. (Author)