From social cognition to social phenomena
CogSci: core course
Winter term, 2014
Course description
What are the psychological bases of the rich social interactions and cultural life
that characterise human societies? This course will review some of the answers
provided by recent studies in cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology and
social anthropology. It will cover a wide range of topics related to social
cognition and human sociality, including:
 Mind reading
 Naive sociology
 Communication, social learning, imitation
 The biological evolution of social cognitive capacities
 Models of Man in the social sciences
 The cultural diversity of human psychology
 How human psychology constrains culture
 Models of cultural evolution
 Co-operation and moral cognition
(Note that some key themes will be omitted. Joint action, for instance, has been
taught in N. Sebanz and G. Knoblich’s research course. Mind-reading is a key
ability that ground most aspects of our social life, but it will be dealt more
thoroughly in D. Samson’s elective course. I have also included no brain studies).
The course is structured in three parts that focus on different aspects of social
cognition and human sociality. The first parts is focused on the social cognitive
skills that humans have. It will include sessions on mind-reading, social
perception and naïve sociology, and the biological evolution of social cognition.
The two last parts are focused on culture and cognition. The second part will
review social scientists’ take on human psychology and how it influences their
understanding of social phenomena. The third part will deal with specific themes
in cognition and culture: morality, religion and science.
Course convenor
Christophe Heintz
Office hours
Meeting by appointment. Students are also welcome just to pop in the office.
http://www.ceu.hu/profiles/faculty/christophe_heintz
Goal of the course
Students will be presented with up to date research on key issues in the study of
social cognition. Even though the course could not consist of a comprehensive
review of current research on social cognition, themes have been chosen so as
cover the main issues and illuminate what are the stakes of the research field.
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The second goal of the course is to open up psychology students to basic
questions in the social science and reflect on the actual and potential
contributions of social sciences and cognitive psychology to each other.
Learning outcome
Students will learn about the theories specifying the cognitive bases of human
sociality. They will reflect on the empirical evidence--from comparative
psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, experimental psychology
and social anthropology--that ground these theories. Students will also become
aware of the diversity of assumptions about human psychology in the social
science and have a better grasp of what social scientists have said about human
sociality.
Requirements:
 All students must read the core reading before the seminars. Students are
expected to contribute to class discussion and should have ready, each week,
at least one question based on the texts and that could be fruitfully addressed
during class discussion.
 Each student will present a set of papers to the class and will participate to a
‘debate’ (see week 2 session). For individual presentations, I encourage
preparing a handout that summarizes the goals of the papers, their main
arguments and the method and evidence they rely on. For participation to
debates, relatively comprehensive reviews of the arguments and empirical
evidence in favour of a given position will have to be presented and defended.
 Registered students must submit a short essay of no more than 2,000 words
at the end of the term. Students will decide on the topic of the essay in
agreement with me. First year PhD students will be encouraged to focus on
the social and cultural aspects of their chosen PhD topics. This could mean
questioning the potential cultural variability of the cognitive mechanisms to
be investigated, questioning how the type of behavioural effects to be
investigated participate to the shaping of some social phenomena,
questioning societal implications of the student’s research project (political
and organisational implications, potential applications in cognitive
ergonomy).
Grades will be awarded as follows:
 Final essay 40%
 Paper presentation and debates 40 %
 Participation 20%
1. Capacities for navigating our social world
Week 1
Theories of mind-reading:
- The intentional stance (Dennett)
- Theory theory (Gopnik)
- Simulation theory and the role mirror neurons (Goldman)
- Core cognition (Leslie)
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Core reading:

Leslie, A. M., Friedman, O., & German, T. P. (2004). Core mechanisms in “theory of mind”.
Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(12), 528–33.
Other readings:
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Dennett, D. (2009). Intentional Systems Theory. In B. McLaughlin, A. Beckermann, & S.
Walter (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Mind (pp. 339–50). Oxford University
Press.
Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. (1992). Why the child’s theory of mind really is a theory. Mind &
Language, 7(1-2), 145–171.
Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. (1998). Mirror neurons and the mind-reading, 2(12), 493–501.
Jacob, P. (2008). What Do Mirror Neurons Contribute to Human Social Cognition? Mind &
Language, 23(2), 190–223. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00337.x
Leslie, A.M. (2000) How to acquire a ‘representational theory of mind’ In D. Sperber (ed)
Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective, OUP, 197—223.
Week 2
Making sense of others: with or without representing intentions and beliefs?
- Automatic vs. effortful mind reading
- Enactive vs. ‘representational’ theories
- Dealing with the developmental paradox
During this week, a debate will be organised on early mind-reading abilities. Two
groups of 3 students will be randomly assigned a position that they will have to
defend:
Position A: early mind-reading performances are not resulting from the capacity to
represent others’ beliefs and intentions
Position B: early mind-reading performances are resulting from the capacity to
represent others’ beliefs and intentions
With or without representing others’ thoughts
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Heyes, C. (2014). False belief in infancy : a fresh look. Developmental science, 1–13.
doi:10.1111/desc.12148
Hutto, D. D., Herschbach, M., & Southgate, V. (2011). Editorial: Social Cognition:
Mindreading and Alternatives. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2(3), 375–395.
doi:10.1007/s13164-011-0073-0
Jacob, P. (2011). The Direct-Perception Model of Empathy: a Critique. Review of Philosophy
and Psychology, 2(3), 519–540. doi:10.1007/s13164-011-0065-0
Two systems belief reasoning
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Apperly, I. a, & Butterfill, S. a. (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and
belief-like states? Psychological review, 116(4), 953–70. doi:10.1037/a0016923
Early mind reading—attribution of goals
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Gergely, G., Nfidasdy, Z., Csibra, G., & Bfr, S. (1995). Taking the intentional stance at 12
months of age, 0277(95).
Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2003). Teleological reasoning in infancy: the naïve theory of
rational action, 7(7), 287–292. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00128-1
Woodward, a. (1998). Infants selectively encode the goal object of an actor’s reach.
Cognition, 69(1), 1–34.
Early mind reading—attribution of beliefs
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Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs?
Science, 308(5719), 255–8. doi:10.1126/science.1107621
Southgate, V., Chevallier, C., & Csibra, G. (2010). Seventeen-month-olds appeal to false
beliefs to interpret others’ referential communication. Developmental science, 13(6), 907–12.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00946.x
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Surian, L., Caldi, S., & Sperber, D. (2007). Attribution of beliefs by 13-month-old infants.
Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 18(7), 580–6.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01943.x
Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action anticipation through attribution of false
belief by 2-year-olds. Psychological science, 18(7), 587–92. doi:10.1111/j.14679280.2007.01944.x
Automaticity—perspective taking
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Samson, D., Apperly, I. a, Braithwaite, J. J., Andrews, B. J., & Bodley Scott, S. E. (2010).
Seeing it their way: evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see.
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 36(5), 1255–66.
doi:10.1037/a0018729
Automaticity—representing beliefs
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Apperly, I. a, Back, E., Samson, D., & France, L. (2008). The cost of thinking about false
beliefs: evidence from adults’ performance on a non-inferential theory of mind task.
Cognition, 106(3), 1093–108. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.05.005
Kovács, Á. M., Téglás, E., & Endress, A. D. (2010). The social sense: Susceptibility to others’
beliefs in human infants and adults. Science, 1830. doi:10.1126/science.1190792
Week 3
Comparative psychology and the evolution of social cognition
- The Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis
- Homologies and analogies for ToM.
- The evolution of cooperative dispositions (a brief note only)
Core reading:
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Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Cooperation and human cognition: the Vygotskian
intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B,
Biological sciences, 362(1480), 639–48. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.2000
Others:
Evolution of ToM
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Byrne, R., & Whiten, A. (1989). Machiavellian Intelligence : Social Expertise and the
Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans. Oxford Science Publications.
Flinn, M. V., Geary, D. C., & Ward, C. V. (2005). Ecological dominance, social competition,
and coalitionary arms races. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(1), 10–46.
doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.005
Homologies: primate’s ToM
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Povinelli, D. J., & Vonk, J. (2003). Chimpanzee minds : suspiciously human ?, 7(4), 157–160.
doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00053-6
Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(5), 187–92. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and
sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition. The Behavioral and brain sciences, 28(5),
675–91; discussion 691–735. doi:10.1017/S0140525X05000129
Analogies: corvides, dogs, dolphins
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Emery, N. J., Seed, A. M., Bayern, A. M. P. Von, & Clayton, N. S. (2007). Cognitive
adaptations of social bonding in birds. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 362, 489–505.
doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1991
Emery, N. J., & Clayton, N. S. (2004). The mentality of crows: convergent evolution of
intelligence in corvids and apes. Science (New York, N.Y.), 306(5703), 1903–7.
doi:10.1126/science.1098410
Cooperative dispositions
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West, S., Griffin, A., & Gardner, A. (2007). Evolutionary explanations for cooperation.
Current Biology, 17, R661-R672.
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Bshary, R., & Grutter, A. S. (2006). Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish
mutualism. Nature, 441(7096), 975–8. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature04755
Week 4
Cognizing social phenomena
- Ingroup vs. outgroups, coalitional cognition and racism
- Thinking about dominance
- Social perception
Core reading:
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Kurzban, Tooby & Cosmides, 2001. Can race be erased? PNAS, 98, 15387-15392.
Others:
Ingroup/outgroup
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Tajfel, H. (1970). Experiments in intergroup discrimination. Scientific American.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology,
33, 1–39.
Race and coalition
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Kinzler, Dupoux & Spelke, 2007. The native language of social cognition. PNAS, 104, 1257712580.
Kinzler, K. D., & Dautel, J. B. (2012). Children’s essentialist reasoning about language and
race. Developmental Science, 15(1), 131–8.
Hirschfeld (1998). Race in the making. MIT Press.
Dominance
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Thomsen, Frankenhuis, Ingold-Smith & Carey , 2011. Big and mighty: preverbal infants
mentally represent social dominance, Science, 331, 477-480.
Mascaro, O., & Csibra, G. (2012). Representation of stable social dominance relations by
human infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(18), 6862–6867
Social perception
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Nosek, B., et al. (2007). Pervasiveness and correlates of implicit attitudes and stereotypes.
European Review of Social Psychology, 1-53.
Fiske, S., et al. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 77-83.
Todorov, A., et al. (2008). Understanding evaluation of faces on social dimensions. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 12, 455-460.
Week 5
Learning from others: communication and imitation
Core reading
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Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2009). Natural pedagogy. Trends in cognitive sciences, 13(4), 148–
53. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.01.005
Other readings:
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Király, I., Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2013). Beyond rational imitation: Learning arbitrary
means actions from communicative demonstrations. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2012.12.003
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2002). Relevance theory. In L. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), Handbook
of Pragmatics. Blackwell Publishing.
Marchand, T. H. J. (2010). Embodied cognition and communication : studies with British fine
woodworkers. African Studies.
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2. The psychological foundations of cultural diversity
Week 6
Psychologizing culture, enculturating minds
The course will consist of a short lecture introducing the theory of cultural models,
doing a short review of key findings in cross-cultural psychology and contrasting it
with Cosmides and Tooby’s account of cultural diversity.
It will be followed by a debate about the plasticity of the mind, dealing with the
following questions:
- Is cultural diversity an evidence for the plasticity of the mind?
- Reciprocally: can cognitive plasticity account for cultural diversity?
Two groups of 3 students will be randomly assigned a position that they will have
to defend:
Position A: cognitive plasticity is evidenced by the cultural diversity and makes it
possible.
Position B: enculturation is mainly acquisition of knowledge. There is no need to
presuppose cognitive plasticity for explaining cultural diversity.
Cultural anthropology: culture and personality, and cultural models
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Mead, M. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, Chap. 17: The standardization
of sex temperament.
Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1998). A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. Cambridge
University Press. Chapter 6: Research on Shared Task Solution.
Bloch, M. 'What goes without saying' In Anthropology & the cognitive challenge.
R A Shweder, and M A Sullivan (1993), "Cultural Psychology: Who Needs It?", Annual
Review of Psychology 44: 497–523.
Cultural diversity of psychological traits and cognition
 Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2009). The Weirdest People in the World.
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Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5.
Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2007). Cultural recycling of cortical maps. Neuron, 56(2), 384398.
Evolutionary psychologists’ critics of social scientists’ psychological
assumptions:
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Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L.
Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the
Generation of Culture (pp. 163–229). Oxford University Press.
Situated and distributed cognition:
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Hutchins, E. (1995). How a Cockpit Remembers Its Speeds, 288, 265–288.
Week 7
The human mind is shaping cultural phenomena
Core reading:
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Sperber, D., & Hirschfeld, L. (2006). Culture and modularity. In T. Simpson, P. Carruthers, S.
Laurence, & S. Stich (Eds.), The innate mind: Culture and cognition.
Others:
Structuralist anthropology and componential analysis
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Lévi-Strauss, C. (1949). L'efficacité symbolique. Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, 135(1), 527. (English translation in Structural Anthropology, chap. 10).
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Fessler, D. M., & Navarrete, C. (2003). Meat is good to taboo - dietary proscriptions as a
product of the interaction of psychological mechanisms and social processes. Journal of
cognition and culture , 3 (1), 1-40.
Evolutionary psychology
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Shackelford, T. K. (2005). An evolutionary psychological perspective on cultures of honor.
Evolutionary Psychology, 3, 381-391.
Cultural epidemiology
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Sperber, D., & Hirschfeld, L. (2004). The cognitive foundations of cultural stability and
diversity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(1), 40–46.
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Week 8
Models of cultural evolution
Models of diffusion of innovation: r- and s-shaped curves
Information cascades; cascading behaviour in network
The attractor vs. selectionist model of cultural evolution
Core reading:
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Heintz, C., & Claidière, N. (2013). Current Darwinism in Social Science. In Handbook of
Evolution Theory in the Sciences.
Others:
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Henrich, J. (2001). Cultural Transmission and the Diffusion of Innovation: Adoption
Dynamics Indicate That Biased Cultural Transmission Is the Predominate Force in Behavioral
Change. American Anthropologist, 103(4), 992–1013.
Henrich, J. (2004). Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale
cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 53, 3–35.
Claidière, N., Scott-Phillips, T. C. & Sperber, D. (2014). How Darwinian is cultural
evolution? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Sperber, D. (1996) Explaining culture: a naturalistic approach, Blackwell Publishing.
Chapter 5.
3. Themes in cognition and culture
Week 9
Morality
Short debate: are moral judgement based on intentions or on outcomes?
Two groups of 3 students will be randomly assigned a position that they will have
to defend:
Position A: Moral intuitions are first and foremost based on outcomes
Position B: Moral intuitions are first and foremost based on intentions
Core reading

Baumard, N., André, J., & Sperber, D. (2012). A mutualistic approach to morality. Behavioral
and Brain Sciences.
Other readings:
Moral intuitions and moral reasoning
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Haidt, J. (2001). The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail : A Social Intuitionist Approach to
Moral Judgment. Psychological Review; Psychological Review, 814–834.
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Greene, J., & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 6(12), 517–523.
Greene, Joshua D. "The secret joke of Kant’s soul." Moral Psychology: Historical and
Contemporary Readings (2007): 359-372.
Dupoux, E., & Jacob, P. (2007). Universal moral grammar: a critical appraisal. Trends in
cognitive sciences, 11(9), 373–8. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.07.001
Cultural diversity of morality
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Baumard, Nicolas, and Pascal Boyer. "Explaining moral religions." Trends in cognitive
sciences 17.6 (2013): 272-280.
Gurven, M., Zanolini, A., & Schniter, E. (2008). Culture sometimes matters: intra-cultural
variation in pro-social behavior among Tsimane Amerindians. Journal of economic behavior
& organization, 67(3-4), 587–607. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2007.09.005
Developmental psychology of moral behaviour
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Sloane, S., Baillargeon, R., & Premack, D. (2012). Do infants have a sense of fairness?
Psychological science.
Hamlin, J., & Mahajan, N. (2013). Not like me= bad infants prefer those who harm dissimilar
others. Psychological Science, 24(4), 589–594.
Hamlin, J., Wynn, K., Bloom, P., & Mahajan, N. (2011). How infants and toddlers react to
antisocial others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(50), 19931–19936.
Oucome vs. intention-based moral judgement
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McCabe, K. (2003). Positive reciprocity and intentions in trust games. Journal of Economic
Behavior & Organization, 52(2), 267–275.
Cushman, F. (2008). Crime and punishment: distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional
analyses in moral judgment. Cognition, 108(2), 353–80. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.006
Week 10
Religion
Guest lecturer: Vlad Naumescu
Readings: TBA
----OR----Economic cognition and economic traditions
Readings:
The substantivist-formalist debate in economic anthropology
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Polanyi, K. (1958) "Trade and Markets in the Early Empires" edit par Karl Polanyi, Conrad
Arensberg et Harry W. Pearson, pp. 243-270. The Free Press; 1958
Sahlins, M. D. (1972). Stone Age Economics. Transaction Publishers. Chapter 4: The spirit of
the gift.
Firth, R. Elements of social organization, PP. 122-154. London: Watts and Co, 1952
Cook, S. (1966). The Obsolete “Anti-Market” Mentality: A Critique of the Substantive
Approach to Economic Anthropology. American Anthropologist, 68(2), 323–345.
doi:10.1525/aa.1966.68.2.02a00010
The economic approach to human behaviour à la Becker
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Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2006). Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden
Side of Everything. HarperCollins. Chapter 3: Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their
Moms?
Week 11
Scientific cognition and science as a cultural phenomenon
Core reading
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Nersessian, N. J. (1995). Opening the Black Box: Cognitive Science and History of Science.
Osiris, 2nd Series, 10, 194–211.
Other reading
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Heintz, C. The epidemiology of the infinitesimals.
Giere, R. N., & Moffatt, B. (2003). Distributed Cognition: Where the Cognitive and the Social
Merge. Social Studies Of Science, 33.
Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: Scientific reasoning in real-world
laboratories. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of insight (pp. 365–395).
The MIT Press.
Mercier, H., & Heintz, C. (2014). Scientists’ Argumentative Reasoning. Topoi, 33, 513–524.
Week 12
Catch up, wrap up, or a theme on demand ...
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