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Social cognition is a topic within psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in social interactions.
More technically, social cognition refers to how people deal with conspecifics (members of the same species) or even across species (such as pet) information, include four stages: encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing. In the area of social psychology, social cognition refers to a specific approach in which these processes are studied according to the methods of cognitive psychology and information processing theory. According to this view, social cognition is a level of analysis that aims to understand social psychological phenomena by investigating the cognitive processes that underlie them.(International Social Cognition Network: http://www.socialcognition.info) The major concerns of the approach are the processes involved in the perception, judgment, and memory of social stimuli; the effects of social and affective factors on information processing; and the behavioral and interpersonal consequences of cognitive processes. This level of analysis may be applied to any content area within social psychology, including research on intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup processes.
The term social cognition has been used in multiple areas in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, most often to refer to various social abilities disrupted in autism,
schizophrenia and psychopathy. In cognitive neuroscience the biological basis of social cognition is investigated. Developmental psychologists study the development of social cognition abilities.
It has been suggested that other disciplines in social psychology such as social identity theory and social representations may be seeking to explain largely the same phenomena as social cognition, and that these different disciplines might be merged into a "coherent integrated whole".
A parallel paradigm has arisen in the study of action, termed motor cognition, which is concerned with understanding the representation of action and the associated process.
/ref> and neurobiology.Fishburn, F. A., Murty, V. P., Hlutkowsky, C. O., MacGillivray, C. E., Bemis, L. M., Murphy, M. E., ... & Perlman, S. B. (2018). "Putting our heads together: interpersonal neural synchronization as a biological mechanism for shared intentionality." Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 13(8), 841-849.
Currently, only one hypothesis attempts to explain neurophysiological processes occurring during shared intentionality in all its integral complexity, from the level of interpersonal dynamics to interaction at the neuronal level.Val Danilov, I. (2023). "Theoretical Grounds of Shared Intentionality for Neuroscience in Developing Bioengineering Systems." OBM Neurobiology
.Val Danilov I. (2023). "Low-Frequency Oscillations for Nonlocal Neuronal Coupling in Shared Intentionality Before and After Birth: Toward the Origin of Perception." OBM Neurobiology
/ref> By establishing the neurophysiological hypothesis of shared intentionality, Latvian Prof. Igor Val Danilov expanded the use of the term shared intentionality to include consideration of the interaction between an embryo and her mother. From this perspective, abilities to process, store, and apply information about others develop from the prenatal period. This insight continues the reflections of great thinkers (e.g., Kant) and leading child development theorists (beginning from Montessori and Vygotsky) about the beginning of cognition in interactions with the environment.OECD (2007). "Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science." OECD Publishing. p. 165. ISBN 978-92-64-02913-2.Chapter 2: The Montessori philosophy. From Lillard, P. P. Lillard (1972). Montessori: A Modern Approach. Schocken Books, New York. Based on experimental data from research on child behavior in the prenatal period,Castiello, U.; Becchio, C.; Zoia, S.; Nelini, C.; Sartori, L.; Blason, L.; D'Ottavio, G.; Bulgheroni, M.; Gallese, V. (2010). "Wired to be social: the ontogeny of human interaction." PloS one, 5(10), p.e13199.Kisilevsky, B.C. (2016). "Fetal Auditory Processing: Implications for Language Development? Fetal Development." Research on Brain and Behavior, Environmental In uences, and Emerging Technologies,: 133-152.Lee, G.Y.C.; Kisilevsky, B.S. (2014). "Fetuses respond to father’s voice but prefer mother’s voice after birth." Developmental Psychobiology, 56: 1-11.Hepper, P.G.; Scott, D.; Shahidullah, S. (1993). "Newborn and fetal response to maternal voice." Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 11: 147-153.Lecanuet, J.P.; Granier‐Deferre, C.; Jacquet, A.Y.; Capponi, I.; Ledru, L. (1993). "Prenatal discrimination of a male and a female voice uttering the same sentence." Early development and parenting, 2(4): 217-228.Hepper P. (2015). "Behavior during the prenatal period: Adaptive for development and survival." Child Development Perspectives, 9(1): 38-43. DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12104.Jardri, R.; Houfflin-Debarge, V.; Delion, P.; Pruvo, J-P.; Thomas, P.; Pins, D. (2012). "Assessing fetal response to maternal speech using a noninvasive functional brain imaging technique." International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience, 2012, 30: 159–161. doi:10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2011.11.002. and advances in inter-brain neuroscience research, this neurophysiological hypothesis introduced the notion of non-local neuronal coupling of the mother and fetus neuronal networks. The notion of non-local neuronal coupling filled a gap in knowledge – both in the Core Knowledge Theory and the group of positions in Externalism – about the beginning of cognition, the gap that the binding problem has also shown. This insight also shed light on neurophysiological processes that underlie the human ability to process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations beginning from the reflexes stage of development, when even aware goal-directed behavior is questioned. While exactly due to the ability of shared intentionality, very young babies express social behavior. This ability manifests in recognizing and selectively responding to social stimuli. From this perspective, Social cognition contributes to cognitive development of newborns and even embryos when communication is still impossible. A development of the human ability to process, store, and apply information about others begins in the prenatal period.
When a schema is more accessible it can be more quickly activated and used in a particular situation. Two cognitive processes that increase accessibility of schemas are salience and priming. Salience is the degree to which a particular social object stands out relative to other social objects in a situation. The higher the salience of an object the more likely that schemas for that object will be made accessible. For example, if there is one female in a group of seven males, female gender schemas may be more accessible and influence the group's thinking and behavior toward the female group member. Priming refers to any experience immediately prior to a situation that causes a schema to be more accessible. For example, watching a scary movie late at night might increase the accessibility of frightening schemas, increasing the likelihood that a person will perceive shadows and background noises as potential threats.
Social cognition researchers are interested in how new information is integrated into pre-established schemas, especially when the information contrasts with the existing schema. For example, a student may have a pre-established schema that all teachers are assertive and bossy. After encountering a teacher who is timid and shy, a social cognition researcher might be interested in how the student will integrate this new information with his/her existing teacher schema. Pre-established schemas tend to guide attention to new information, as people selectively attend to information that is consistent with the schema and ignore information that is inconsistent. This is referred to as a confirmation bias. Sometimes inconsistent information is sub-categorized and stored away as a special case, leaving the original schema intact without any alterations. This is referred to as subtyping.
Social cognition researchers are also interested in the regulation of activated schemas. It is believed that the situational activation of schemas is automatic, meaning that it is outside individual conscious control.Nummenmaa, L.; Peets, K.; Salmivalli, C. (2008). "Automatic Activation of Adolescents' Peer-Relational Schemas: Evidence from Priming with Facial Identity." Child Development, 79(6), 1659. In many situations however, the schematic information that has been activated may be in conflict with the social norms of the situation in which case an individual is to inhibit the influence of the schematic information on their thinking and social behavior. Whether a person will successfully regulate the application of the activated schemas is dependent on individual differences in self-regulatory ability and the presence of situational impairments to executive control. High self-regulatory ability and the lack of situational impairments on executive functioning increase the likelihood that individuals will successfully inhibit the influence of automatically activated schemas on their thinking and social behavior. When people stop suppressing the influence of the unwanted thoughts, a rebound effect can occur where the thought becomes hyper-accessible.
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/ref> This ability highlights the importance of social cognition in recognizing and interpreting human movement and behavior.
/ref> This expansion is thought to reflect the increased importance of social cognition in human evolution.
Cultural influences have been found to shape some of the basic ways in which people automatically perceive and think about their environment. For example, a number of studies have found that people who grow up in East Asian cultures such as China and Japan tend to develop holistic thinking styles, whereas people brought up in Western cultures like Australia and the USA tend to develop analytic thinking styles. The typically Eastern holistic thinking style is a type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context and the ways in which objects relate to each other. For example, if an Easterner was asked to judge how a classmate is feeling then he/she might scan everyone's face in the class, and then use this information to judge how the individual is feeling. On the other hand, the typically Western analytic thinking style is a type of thinking style in which people focus on individual objects and neglect to consider the surrounding context. For example, if a Westerner was asked to judge how a classmate is feeling, then he or she might focus only on the classmate's face in order to make the judgment.
Nisbett (2003) suggested that cultural differences in social cognition may stem from the various philosophical traditions of the East (i.e. Confucianism and Buddhism) versus the Greek philosophical traditions (i.e. of Aristotle and Plato) of the West. Other research indicates that differences in social cognition may originate from physical differences in the environments of the two cultures. One study found that scenes from Japanese cities were 'busier' than those in the US as they contain more objects which compete for attention. In this study, the Eastern holistic thinking style (and focus on the overall context) was attributed to the busier nature of the Japanese physical environment.
Later studies find that these differences in cognitive style can be explained by differences in relational mobility. Relational mobility is a measure of how much choice individuals have in terms of whom to form relationships with, including friendships, romantic partnerships, and work relations. Relational mobility is low in cultures with a subsistence economy that requires tight cooperation and coordination, such as farming, while it is high in cultures based on Pastoralism and in urban industrial cultures. A cross-cultural study found that the relational mobility is lowest in East Asian countries where Paddy rice is common, and highest in South American countries.
These cultural influences might have also been results of the Chameleon Effect. The Chameleon Effect is when people unconsciously mimic the behaviors, gestures, and expressions of others. Chartrand and Bargh (1999) found that people favor those who were subtly mimicking them over those who weren’t; those who were mimicking others were more likely to be liked and have more friendly interactions with others. The intensity of the Chameleon Effect highly depends on the culture norm and what is seen as acceptable. In a culture promoting collectivism, which highly values group harmony and requires one to actively fit in, this subtle mimicking is more likely to occur as it is socially accepted. However, culture promoting individualism, which prioritizes independence over group harmony, mimicry might be less common or even seen as intrusive. Therefore, the intensity of the Chameleon Effect highly depends on the culture norm and what is seen as acceptable.
People with psychological disorders such as autism, psychosis, mood disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Williams syndrome, antisocial personality disorder, Fragile X, Turner's syndrome and ADHD show differences in social behavior compared to their unaffected peers. Parents with PTSD show disturbances in at least one aspect of social cognition: namely, joint attention with their young children only after a laboratory-induced relational stressor as compared to healthy parents without PTSD. However, whether social cognition is underpinned by domain-specific neural mechanisms is still an open issue. There is now an expanding research field examining how such conditions may bias cognitive processes involved in social interaction, or conversely, how such biases may lead to the symptoms associated with the condition.
The development of social cognitive processes in infants and children has also been researched extensively (see developmental psychology). For example, it has been suggested that some aspects of psychological processes that promote social behavior (such as Face perception) may be innate. Consistent with this, very young babies recognize and selectively respond to social stimuli such as the voice, face and scent of their mother.
. From the perspective of the shared intentionality hypothesis, social behavior of these organisms with simple reflexes emerges due to social cognition in social interaction with caregivers. Numerous hyper-scanning research studies in adults and mother-child dyadsAtilla, F.; Alimardani, M.; Kawamoto, T.; Hiraki, K. (2023). "Mother-child inter-brain synchrony during a mutual visual search task: A study of feedback valence and role." Social Neuroscience, 18:4, 232-244, DOI:10.1080/17470919.2023.2228545 support the shared intentionality nature of social behavior in young children (see the section Development).
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