SOCIAL COGNITION
1970s, label ‘social cognition’

(arises out of earlier work on attitudes, attribution, person
perception)
‘…The social cognition approach is based on the conviction that
constructs relevant to cognitive representation and process are
fundamental to understanding all human responses, regardless
of whether those responses are social or non-social in nature…’
(Ostrom 1994)
Process by which people make sense
of/think about other people

Premise that cognition underlies all important
human phenomena:



Cognition both determines and is determined by how we live our
lives.
Sole difference between cognitive psychology and
social cognition is phenomena being understood
Contribution: use of common explanatory principles
across all areas of social psychology

Drive toward theoretical generality, theoretical integration
Core principles of social cognition

Experimentation

Metaphorical models: Information processor; naïve
scientist; cognitive miser; motivated tactician (Fiske & Taylor
1991)


James 1890/1983:960 ‘My thinking is first and last and always for the
sake of my doing and I can only do one thing at a time’
Constructivism & Realism

Perceptual cognitivism (therefore posits internal cognitive
constructs)

Mental representations

Unconscious operations

Controlled processes
Objects vs. People as targets of perception
Some important differences




People intentionally influence their environment (intentionality)
People as objects of perception perceive back; joint
perception is negotiated (mutual perception)
Social cognition implicates the self as subject as well as
object (self-presentation)
Social objects may change upon being the target of cognition
(variable)



The accuracy or veracity of cognitions about people is harder
or impossible to assess than for non-social objects (complex)
Social cognition involves social explanation
Social cognition is shared.
Pragmatic social context of thinking
about others
PHILOSOPHY
2 descriptions of thinking
 Locke’s 1690 elemental approach
 Kant 1871 interpretative constructive approach (Gestalt)
Asch 1964 (configural model)
Impressions are a configuration, they are unified and integrated
- active process
We go beyond information given Bruner 1957
alternative: elemental or algebraic model Anderson 1981
 Take components of impression, extract evaluations
 Decision making model
 Highly predictive
Holistic or Gestalt model started research into schemas
= cognitive structure that represents knowledge about concept
or stimulus, incl. attributes & relations among attributes
(Fiske & Taylor 1991:98)
Preconceptions or theories about social world
 Person schemas
 Self-schemas
 Role schemas
 Event schemas
Information management
Schemas shape how we encode, remember & judge
information - categorization process

Direct attention

Guide memory

Influence judgement
Schemas vs. evidence – theory vs. data? Depends on fit &
diagnosticity; motivation; conditions
Default option – schema.
3 major processes operate on Schemas and
attributions = fundamental building blocks of social
cognition



Attention
Memory
inference
Attention
Selectivity in processing information from the environment.
What effects does salience have on our perception of others?
2 different kinds of processes: encoding and consciousness,
the experience of awareness itself.
Most important features: selective & limited.
Context – salience is a property of a stimulus in a particular
context.
Immediate context
One’s schema or prior knowledge
Current task



Salience:


exaggerates people’s causal attributions
exaggerates our evaluations, polarises them.
Person memory

Sets or goals relating to learning new information





Memory set
Impression set
Empathy set
Self-reference
Anticipated interaction
Priming of old information
Human Inference – core of SC
Once information is available:



personal filters in the form of cognitive categories;
limited ability to process information; and
values and interests
act to select, categorize and provide the basis for a person to
organize events
Personal constructs - templates through which we draw
inferences about others’ characteristics.
We do not invent these cognitive units, we acquire
them primarily through the language of our culture.
Inferences drawn often fallacious or biased.
Errors and biases: Heuristics
Tversky & Kahneman 1974




Representativeness
Availability
Simulation (counterfactual thinking)
Anchoring & adjustment
Continuing critique from European inspired
intergroup perspective (Social Identity Theory)
Social cognition ignores group conflicts & memberships,
asocietal individual


Low context, high objectivity
Decontextualized and individualistic
Self/other : Psychological/social can’t be detached
Social & psychological determinants of behaviour not
competing alternatives but inseparable complements
Reading

2 pages on Macrae et al. study 1994 – Augoustinos et al.
2006*(required).

Ch. 5 in the Blackwell Reader
McGarty & Haslam, Ch. 23 & 7
Steele, R.S. & Morawski, J.G. (2002) Implicit cognition and
the social unconscious. Theory & Psychology, 12(1), 37-54.
Fiske, S.T., Cuddy, A.J.C. & Glick, P. (2006) Universal
dimensions of social cognition: Warmth & competence.
Trends in Cognitive Science, 11(2), 77-83.


