- Mentalism

- Orientation Towards Cognitive Processes

- Cross-fertilization of Cognitive and Social Psychology

- Application to the Real World
- Dual Modes of Processing

Basic Assumptions of Social Cognitive Theories

- Organizations
- Articles 
- Books
- Newspapers

References for Social Cognition

In addition to physical needs for survival, humans also have social motives that shape our thinking, relationships, and emotions. When our motives are fulfilled we will tend to feel good, and when they are not, we will tend to feel stressed or unhappy. Some major social motives are:
- belonging
- predicting others' behavior accurately
- control
- self-enhancement (a need to matter)
- trust

Social motives

It describes how our most important associations with religious, political, national, and occupational groups provide us with a sense of belonging, worth and shapes our thinking of people in/outside of these groups. Developed by Henri Tajfel, a polish jew who ended up in a Nazi prisoner of war camp during WWII. 

Social Identity Theory

Hurting associated with humiliation, rejection, or insult. It can feel as bad or worse than physical pain.

Social pain

The self-concept refers to one's fundamental sense of identity. It is a mental representation of oneself that helps in interpreting ambiguous information, setting appropriate goals for oneself, and regulating one's thoughts and emotions.

Self-Concept

Refers to various processes where people perceive, organize, and integrate information to form unified impressions of others

Impression Formation Theories

Self-socialization is the process by which children actively shape their own development.

Self-Socialization 

- Selman's Stage Theory of Role Taking
- Dodge's Information-Processing Theory of Social Problem Solving
- Dweck's Theory of Self-Attribution and Achievement Motivation
-Hierarchical Interdependent Taxonomy of Social Cognition model

Types of Information Processing Theories in Social Cognition

Judgement is relative. How we think about a person or event depends on the context surrounding it. 

Social context

a phenomenon when social groups create and maintain false beliefs about the world, even when contradictory evidence is present (e.g., belief that scientists are looking for a personal advantage by suggesting anthropogenic climate change)

Sulik, J., Efferson, C., & McKay, R. (2021). Collectively Jumping to Conclusions: Social Information Amplifies the Tendency to Gather Insufficient Data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001044

Collective Delusions

A phenomenon when individuals' psychological processes "scale up" to group-level phenomena, often in unpredictable ways

Sulik, J., Efferson, C., & McKay, R. (2021). Collectively Jumping to Conclusions: Social Information Amplifies the Tendency to Gather Insufficient Data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001044

Aggregation Dynamics

The process of cognitively assigning others into social groups.

Social Categorization

When people are confronted with unsympathetic material, either they do not perceive it or they make it fit for their existing opinion; and (c) selective retention, when people simply forget attitude-incongruent information 

Selective Perception 

Interest in social cognition as it relates to schizophrenia is a more recent development, and research in this area has grown dramatically over the past 10-­15 years.

Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

- Emotional Processing
- Social Perception
- Attributional bias/style
- Mentalizing

Features of Social Cognition

- Over the past decade, there has been considerable progress in the development of psychosocial treatments for social cognition in schizophrenia. 
- Given the complex, multifaceted nature of social interactions and the wide range of social functioning difficulties seen in schizophrenia, the field has shifted toward “comprehensive treatments” that address multiple, rather than single, social cognitive domains.


Training Approaches in Social Cognition

- Medium to large associations between social cognitive domains and community 
functioning were reported, with mentalizing showing the strongest relationship 
in a meta-analysis. 
- This meta-analysis reported that social cognition explained roughly 16% of the variance in community functioning, while nonsocial cognition accounted for about 6%.
- The association between social cognition and functioning has been found to hold up over time. For example, significant associations between baseline social cognition and community functioning can be seen one year and even five years later.

Social Cognition and Functional Outcome

The ability to attribute mental states to ourselves as well as others. This capacity is not logically derived, but rather, exists as an innate neurocognitive mechanism. As a foundational element of social behavior, it provides the capacity to interpret the behavior of others. Believed to develop in toddlers as young as 15 months old and is studied in apes and primates. 

Theory of Mind (Cognitive Empathy)

Attribution is the process of inferring the causes of events or behaviors. In social psychology, this often involves determining whether a behavior is due to internal factors, such as personality and character (a dispositional attribution), or external factors, such as the environment and social context (a situational attribution).

Attribution

Social cognition refers to the ways in which individuals think about themselves and others. As a key intrapersonal topic in social psychology, it focuses on the mental processes involved in perceiving, interpreting, and remembering information about the social world.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Alma College

Davidson College

Haverford College in Pennsylvania

Google

The psychological and neurobiological operations by which information is processed, to build knowledge and understanding that supports decision making.

Cognition

- Social Cognition
- Social Perception
- Self-Concept
- Attitudes
- Persuasion
- Intrapersonal communication

Intrapersonal Phenomena

Social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. A key focus is on how people conceptualize and interpret situations, and how these interpretations, along with other situational variables, interact to influence behavior within a social context. The field examines how people affect one another, emphasizing the power of the situation in shaping human actions, and explores all facets of personality and social interaction, particularly the influence of interpersonal and group relationships.

Social psychology

Intrapersonal topics in social psychology are those that pertain to the individual. This area of study includes emotions, attitudes, the self, and social cognition, which covers the ways people think about themselves and others.

Intrapersonal Topics in Social Psychology

Cognition refers to the mental process of thinking. It encompasses a wide array of mental activities, including perception, knowledge acquisition, problem-solving, judgment, language, and memory.

Cognition (Thinking)

Theories of social development provide theoretical frameworks for understanding how individuals develop social and emotional skills, form attachments, and interact with their environments over time. The primary perspectives include psychoanalytic theories, learning theories, theories of social cognition, and ecological theories of development.

Theories of Social Development

Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (2017). Social cognition: From brains to culture. London: Sage Publications. 

 Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture 3rd Edition

Aronson, Elliot, and Joshua Aronson. The Social Animal. Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning, 2018.

The Social Animal

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

The flow of ideas and associations that can lead to conclusions or actions

Thought

Understanding or awareness of something or the sum total of one's understanding/awareness of all things.

Knowledge

Theories and Perspectives on Cognition

Humans (and other animals) are considered cognitive misers. This is some being that conserves mental energy by simplifying the complexity of cognition. It leads to taking mental shortcuts  (heuristics) which can bias behavior.

Cognitive Misers

Humans believe that their subjective view of reality is reality. People believe that they see things as they really are and others don't.

Naive Realism

Intelligence is a complex cognitive characteristic involving the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. It enables individuals to reason, solve problems, plan, and adapt to new situations using logic, understanding, and creativity. Numerous theories have been developed to explain its nature, such as Sternberg's triarchic theory and Gardner's proposal that intelligence comprises multiple factors. Other perspectives also emphasize the significance of emotional intelligence.

Intelligence

Diversity in a group of individuals information, knowledge, representations, mental models and heuristics. It can improve problem solving, predicting and designing.

Cognitive Diversity

The different cognitive tools an individual has - the ways they can think. People have certain talents and skills.

Cognitive Repertoire

Cognitive development refers to the changes in an individual's mental processes. This domain includes the development of learning, attention, memory, language abilities, thinking, reasoning skills, and creativity.

Cognitive Development

Different perspectives, knowledge, attention, processing abilities, skills, and talents.

Cognitive Resources

A state of mind that occurs when there a person holds two or more inconsistent cognitions (i.e., ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, etc.) It results in an unpleasant feeling of mental discomfort and is not the product of a physiological need. This discomfort is hypothesized to be a result of our desire find reason in the world and erase absurdity. Another way at looking at it is that it occurs when our self-justifications conflict. 

Cognitive Dissonance

A measure of analytic thinking and one's tendency to override their initial beliefs. 

Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT)

the awareness, understanding, and adjustment of one’s own thought processes 

Metacognition

Imagination refers to the capability of creating mental representations of concepts, ideas, images, sensations, perspectives, possibilities, or experiences that are not present or accessible in the immediate physical environment.

Imagination

Cognition includes the processes associated with: 
* Perception
* Knowledge
* Problem solving
* Judgment
* Language
* Memory

Components of Cognition

Social Cognition

Cognition is an exceptionally complex process that serves as an essential feature of human consciousness. Despite its central role in shaping conscious awareness, many aspects of cognitive functioning occur unconsciously and are not actively experienced by the individual.

Cognition and Consciousness

Persuasion is the process of changing an individual's attitude toward something based on communication. Unlike attitude change driven by internal factors like cognitive dissonance, persuasion typically involves external forces attempting to influence a person's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Persuasion

The methods that one uses to form beliefs or inferences about others through observing their behaviors.

Social Perception

General evaluations of people, groups, objects, concepts, or issues that last over time. They can range from positive to negative.

Attitudes in Social Psychology

Intrapersonal communication refers to the transmission of messages within an individual, where they adopt dual roles as both the sender and the receiver.

Intrapersonal Communication

Add reference nodes for Intrapersonal Phenomena here. 

References for Intrapersonal Phenomena

- Organizations
- Articles
- Books
- Newspapers
- Dictionaries

Social Psychology References

- Self-categorization theory
- Social Motives
- Social Identity Theory
- Honneth's theory of social recognition
- Social proof 
- Autism as "mind-blindness"
- Social presence theory 
- Terror management theory
- Rule of 150
- Attribution theory
- Emotion
- Social Influence
- Situationism
- Social roles and Social Role Theory
- Social norms
- Prejudice and Discrimination
- Attitudes and Persuasion
- Aggression
- Prosocial behavior

Theories and Focuses of Social psychology

The social psychology discipline has intensively studied how situations impact human states including the study of attitude and behavioral consistency, which are the common variables that UX researchers study. Overall, understanding and applying social psychology theories would help UX researchers and designers create products for specific situations and human states. 

Social Psychology and UX Research 


Social Psychological Research Examples

As per the biopsychosocial model, the biology, psychology, and social elements of a person interact, which influences that person's health.

Biopsychosocial Model

Which of the following topics DO NOT fall under social psychology?

Which of the following best describes the focus of social psychology?

Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the concept of social psychology?

Which of the following research questions would a social psychologist most likely investigate?

Important figures in social psychology include: 
- Philip Zimbardo
- Leon Festinger
- Stanley Milgram
- Solomon Asch

Important Figures in Social Psychology

Social psychology examines topics from two primary perspectives: the intrapersonal level, which concerns processes within the individual, and the interpersonal level, which deals with interactions and relationships between people, including dyads and groups.

Social Psychology Focuses

Human behavior is understood as the result of an interaction between two main types of influences: situational factors, such as cultural norms and the presence of others, and personal factors, which include individual personality characteristics.

Behavior as a Product of Person and Situation

Self-presentation is an intrapersonal process in social psychology that involves how individuals attempt to shape and control the perceptions others have of them.

Self-Presentation

Which of the following best describes cognition?

Which of the following activities is an example of cognition?

Which of the following processes is most directly related to cognition?

Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the concept of cognition?

A significant portion of the brain's cognitive activity, such as perceiving, processing, and organizing information, occurs without our conscious awareness. While we navigate our daily lives, our brains are constantly active, yet most of this underlying mental work goes unnoticed.

Unconscious Cognitive Processes

A practical example of cognition is the mental process of planning daily tasks. This involves contemplating a series of errands, such as visiting the bank, cleaners, and grocery store, and then organizing them in a logical sequence based on factors like timing and location, such as deciding whether to complete them before or after a scheduled class.

Planning Daily Errands as an Example of Cognition

Emotions and memories are powerful forces that actively shape our thoughts and subsequent behaviors. This relationship is not one-way; thoughts also create a feedback loop, influencing and modifying our emotions and memories. This reciprocal interaction highlights the deeply interconnected nature of different cognitive functions.

Reciprocal Influence Between Thoughts, Emotions, and Memories

Scientists who study cognition aim to understand how individuals integrate, organize, and utilize their conscious cognitive experiences, despite being unaware of the vast amount of unconscious work the brain continuously performs.

Goal of Studying Cognition

Ecological theories of development involves taking an evolutionary approach to a child's social development as well as looking at the impact  various environmental  levels have on development over time.

Ecological Theories of Development

Learning theories in social development focus on the impact external factors have in influencing social development. Researchers emphasize the importance of reinforcement and the active role children play in shaping their own social development.

Learning Theories in Social Development

The psychoanalytic approach focuses on the unconscious mind and internal conflict. Mainly described by Freud and Erikson, this approach is motivated by the need to satisfy basic drives.  This approach also emphasizes the importance of early childhood experiences, as they impact different aspects of development over time.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After