What does it mean that schemas have scope?

A schema that works in one context may fail entirely in another.

Example: You build a mental model of 'how meetings work' from your engineering team — agenda, timeboxed, decisions logged. Then you join a board meeting at a nonprofit and try to apply the same schema. No agenda gets circulated, the conversation meanders through relationships and politics, and decisions happen in the hallway afterward. Your meeting schema isn't wrong. It's scoped to a domain it was never designed to leave.

Try this: Pick a schema you rely on daily — how you evaluate people, how you assess risk, how you decide what to read. Write down the domain where you built it (the industry, relationships, or context where you learned it). Then list two domains where you've applied it without adjustment. For each, write one way it might be producing blind spots you haven't noticed.