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Economic and Consumer Psychology SummaryChapter 1: What is Social Cognition?
Social cognition is about the processes that occur when people are concerned about what
others think of them and when people try to control the thoughts and behavior of others. In
other words, social cognition is the study of how people try to understand themselves and
others around them. This can be studied in various ways. One way to study social cognition
is phenomenology. This is a systematic description of the way in which people indicate that
they experience the world. In addition, social cognition has two core visions: naive
psychology and cognition. Naive psychology refers to the general beliefs that people have
regarding the thoughts and behavior of themselves and others. The cognition view involves
a detailed and systematic analysis of the way people think about themselves and others and
relies heavily on the tools of cognitive psychology.
What approaches are there to study the social thinker?
Two approaches can be distinguished that are useful in studying the social thinker. Both
approaches were directed by Solomon Asch (1946). Asch noted that people describe others
by a collection of qualities (traits), which together form a coherent concept of that person (an
impression). His research team devised a study that showed that descriptive words could
cause participants to form certain impressions of people they had never seen before. As a
result, he came up with two models that explain these results:
1) The Configuration Model. This model assumes that people will form a coherent
view of others in which there is no room for variation. This means that when a certain
behavior does not fit within one's overall impression of a person, one interprets this
behavior in such a way that it still supports the overall impression. Context influences
the meaning of various traits (for example, a whining child is seen as tired, while a
whining adult is seen as immature). The brain tries to organize and unite the
perceptions of others. All mental activity results in an impression consisting of
relationships, which form a schema.
2) The Algebraic Model. This model does not start with a unified whole, but with the
observation of several separate evaluations that are collected in a summary
evaluation. It is algebraic in that traits are added together to form a total picture. A
historical context follows in the next section, as the two models mentioned above are
at the heart of much of the research covered in this book.
What is the elemental origin of social cognition research?
The elementary approach to social cognition research is aligned with the algebraic model; it
breaks down scientific problems into small parts that are first analyzed separately from each
other before they are recombined. Information enters through our senses and perceptions
and shapes our ideas. These ideas are associated by proximity in space and time. So, when
two ideas take place together (for example, dancing and shame), they become a whole. The
more often they are paired, the easier and stronger the associations are formed. Early
,psychologists who studied memory (such as Wundt and Ebbinghaus) formed the basis of the
elementary view of cognition.
What is the holistic origin of social cognition research?
The German philosopher Kant observed that people tend to see things in a holistic way and
link the different parts of a thing into one whole (for example, a bowl of grapes instead of 20
single grapes). Likewise, motion is not a sequence of discrete moments, but a cause-effect
relationship. The mind organizes the world by grouping. The German American Gestalt
psychology recognized this insight and applied it to the phenomenon of interest. It used
phenomenology by systematically asking people about their understanding of the world.
Gestalt dealt with the perception of dynamic wholes, while the elementary researchers
focused on the ability to break the whole into measurable parts. In terms of music: the
melody (holistic) versus the single notes (elementary).
What is the person situation field theory?
Kurt Lewin introduced Gestalt to social psychology. He focused more on a subjective, rather
than objective, analysis of people's realities. He called the influence of the perceived social
environment the psychological field. It is not so much what happens, but how one interprets
it that matters the most. Lewin also emphasized describing entire situations; he saw
someone as part of a clash of forces. The total psychological field (and therefore also the
behaviour) is determined by two factors: (1) the person in the situation (everything that
contributes to his/her personality) and (2) cognition and motivation. Cognitions determine
what you may do, while motivation determines whether you do it. Within a psychological
field, a person encounters forces that affect both their cognition and motivation.
How does cognition relate to psychology?
How does cognition relate to experimental psychology?
Wundt, one of the first psychologists, conducted research that relied heavily on
introspection; a psychologist's own description of psychological phenomena, based on his
own experiences and observations. Wundt's goal was to reveal a person's internal
experiences. Introspection was quickly rejected, as it was considered unscientific, as it did
not provide measurable and comparable data. In addition, it was too subjective to be
reproduced. Subsequently, cognition by immeasurability was avoided by psychologists,
leading the psychologists to focus on physical manifestations of mental processes (such as
reflexes, memory, learning). Behaviorist Psychology, with its philosophy of cause and effect,
appealed to science, completely disregarding cognition. A stimulus (S) and response (R)
could be mapped and measured. For a period of about 50 years, behaviorist theory
dominated psychology.
In the 1960s, people became critical of behaviorism. For example, it could not explain the
development of language. In response to this, the information processing approach was
developed. This is the idea that mental operations in different stages, which take place
between stimulus and response, can be broken down. Research into information processing
stems from research into learning. Sequential information processing is an important feature
,of information processing theories. These approaches attempt to specify cognitive
mechanisms to get a grip on the mind's 'black box'. New scientific tools enabled
psychologists to trace the previously unobservable processes. The computer served as both
an instrument and a metaphor for cognitive processing. It provided a framework for a new
way of thinking about psychology. The advent of cognitive neuroscience in the 1990s
changed metaphors and models. Today, cognitive psychologists are more focused on
plausible modeling processes related to the improved understanding of neural networks,
brain systems and single cell responses. Precisely this approach could save psychology
from falling apart, as it does not divide the brain into different clusters. Instead, cognitive
neuroscience recognizes that we are all social, affective, and cognitive actors in the world
we live in.
How does cognition relate to social psychology?
Social psychology has always dealt with cognitive concepts. Social behavior has always
been cognitive in at least three ways. First, it has been considered as a function of people's
perceptions, rather than as objective descriptions of a stimulus environment. In addition,
social psychologists consider both causes and the result of social perception and interaction
in cognitive terms. And thirdly, between the supposed cause and the following, the individual
is regarded as a thinking organism, rather than an emotional organism. Cognitive structures,
such as motivation, memory and attribution were clearly essential in understanding social
interaction. In social psychology, five general models of the social thinker can be identified:
1) The consistency seeker. The consistency theories, which appeared in the late
1950s, regarded people as consistency seekers. According to these theorists, people
are driven to reduce the discomfort they experience from perceived discrepancies
between their cognitions. The most famous example is the dissonance theory: when
someone who has publicly announced his intention to quit smoking has just smoked
a cigarette, he must evoke certain thoughts to reconcile these two cognitions. The
consistency theories thus rely on perceived inconsistency. Cognitive activity is
assigned a central role in this. Subjective, not objective, inconsistency is central to
these theories. When inconsistency is observed, reference is made that someone is
uncomfortable and thus motivated to reduce this inconsistency. This is also known as
the 'drive reduction model'. Motivation becomes the driving force behind the entire
system, as it were. Motivation and cognition are therefore both important within
consistency theories.
2) The naive scientist. This model was introduced in the 1970s and focused on the
way in which people uncover the causes of behavior. Attribution theories – which
focus on how people explain both their own behavior and that of others around them
(external vs. internal attribution) – came to the fore. The first hypotheses of these
theories were that humans are analytic data collectors and therefore ultimately arrive
at the best-founded conclusion. The role of cognition in this model is thus an
outcome of reasonable rational analysis. Unlike consistency theories, which
emphasize motivation, unresolved attributions, according to attribution theorists, do
not constitute motivation to resolve them. According to the attribution theorists,
motivation only helps to catalyze the attribution process.
, 3) The cognitive miser. People are of course not always as rational as the naive
scientist supposes. According to the cognitive miss model (1980s), people are limited
in their competence to process information. According to this model, people take
shortcuts (strategies that simplify complex information or problems) when given the
opportunity. Initially, motivation hardly played a role. But as the cognitive miss model
continued to develop, theorists began to pay attention to the influence of motivation
on cognition. Social interaction became more important here.
4) The motivated tactician. This view, which emerged during the 1990s, saw people
as fully committed thinkers who employ multiple cognitive strategies depending on
their goals, motives, and needs. In some situations, one will be motivated to make a
wise decision with the aim of accuracy and adaptability. In other situations, one will
be motivated to choose self-esteem or speed from a defensive point of view.
5) The activated actor. Today, people are seen as activated actors. Without being
aware of this, people's social concepts are almost automatically activated by their
social environment. As a result, they almost inevitably activate the cognitions,
feelings, evaluations, motivations, and behaviors associated with these social
concepts.
What is social cognition?
Most research on social cognition shares four basic characteristics:
1) Mentalism. This is the belief that cognitive representations are important. This is the
first basic assumption in social cognition research. The study of social cognition is
shaped by cognitive elements that people use when trying to understand other
people and social interactions. General knowledge about ourselves and others allows
us to predict the behavior of others and to function properly in the social sphere.
2) Cognitive Processing. Research on social cognition also includes cognitive
processing. Cognitive processes are the ways in which cognitive elements form,
operate, interact, and change over time. Behaviorists avoided the discussion of
internal processing because of the belief that it could not be scientifically researched.
Social cognition researchers today can measure and describe previously unexplored
aspects of cognitive processes.
3) Cross Fertilization. Another hallmark of social cognition research is the
cross-fertilization between cognitive and social psychology. Social cognition research
takes elements of cognitive and social psychological research and extends them to
neuroscience and other areas of psychology.
4) Daily Problems. Social cognition focuses on applying research to social interactions
in real life. Current sweeping issues such as group behavior, propaganda, and
organizational team building are all addressed within social cognition research.
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