Social Cognition Imp

Social cognition
Social cognition refers to the different psychological processes that influence how
people process, interpret, and respond to social signals. These processes allow
people to understand social behaviour and respond in ways that are appropriate
and beneficial.
Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people

process, store, and apply information about others and social situations. It
focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions. How
we think about others plays a major role in how we think, feel, and interact with
the world around us.
What Is Social Cognition?

Social cognition encompasses a range of processes. Some common
factors that many experts have identified as being important include:
 The processes involved in perceiving other people and how we learn

about the people in the world around us.
 The study of the mental processes involved in perceiving,
remembering, thinking about, and attending to the other people in
our social world.
 The reasons we attend to certain information about the social world,
how it is stored in memory, and how it is used to interact with other
people.
Another important topic in social cognition is the concept of social

schemas. Social schemas refer to people's mental representations of
social patterns and norms. These representations can include information
about societal roles and the expectations of different individuals within a
group.2
Social cognition is not simply a topic within social psychology—it is an

approach to studying any subject with social psychology. Using a social-
cognitive perspective, researchers can study a wide range of topics,
including:
 Attitudes
 Person perception
 Prejudice
 Stereotypes
 Self-concept
 Discrimination
 Persuasion
 Decision-making
Examples of Social Cognition
Imagine that you are getting ready to go on a blind date. Not only do you
worry about the impression and signals that you are sending to the other
person, but you are also concerned with interpreting the signals given by
your date.
Questions you might ask include:
 How do you form an impression of this person?

 What meaning do you read into the other person's behavior?
 How do you attribute their actions?
This is just one example of how social cognition influences a single social
interaction, but you can probably think of many more examples from your
daily life. We spend a considerable portion of every day interacting with
others, which is why this branch of psychology formed to help understand
how we feel, think, and behave in social situations.
Development of Social Cognition

Social cognition develops in childhood and adolescence. As children grow,
they become more aware not only of their own feelings, thoughts, and
motives but also of the emotions and mental states of others.
Children become more adept at understanding how others feel, learning

how to respond in social situations, engaging in prosocial behaviors, and
taking the perspective of others.
While many different theories look at how social cognition develops, one
of the most popular focuses on the work of the psychologist Jean Piaget.
According to Piaget, a child's cognitive development goes through several
stages.
 During the earliest stages of development, children are

very egocentric. They see the world from their own perspective and
struggle to think about how other people may view the world.
 As children grow older, children become increasingly adept at
perspective-taking and have an increased ability to think about how
and why people act the way they do in social situations.
More recently, research has provided evidence that children develop the
ability to think about other people's perspectives at an earlier age than
Piaget believed. Even young preschoolers exhibit some ability to think
about how other people might view a situation.3
One of the most important developments in the early emergence of social
cognition is the growth of a theory of mind. A theory of mind refers to a
person's ability to understand and think about the mental states of other
people.4
It is the emergence of a theory of mind that is critical to being able to

consider the thoughts, motives, desires, needs, feelings, and experiences
that other people may have. Being able to think about how these mental
states can influence how people act is critical to forming social
impressions and explaining how and why people do the things that they
do.
Disorders That Impact Social Cognition

Certain mental health conditions are characterized by disruptions in social
cognition. Examples include:5
 Autism
 Bipolar disorder
 Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
 Dementia
 Depression
 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
 Schizophrenia
 Traumatic brain injury
 Williams syndrome
Cultural Differences in Social Cognition

Social psychologists have also found that there are often important
cultural differences in social cognition. When looking at a social situation,
any two people may have wildly different interpretations. Each person
brings a unique background of experiences, knowledge, social influences,
feelings, and cultural variations.
Collective cultural influences can also affect how people interpret social
situations.6 The same social behavior in one cultural setting might have a
very different meaning and interpretation if it were to occur or be
observed in another culture.
As people interpret behavior, extract meaning from the interaction, and

then act based upon their beliefs about the situation, they are then
further reinforcing and reproducing the cultural norms that influence their
social cognitions.
Albert Bandura’s theory of
social cognition
Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory proposes that human behavior is the product of the
interaction between personal factors, environmental influences, and behavioral patterns. He
emphasized the role of observational learning, social experience, and reciprocal determinism
in human behavior, suggesting that people are both influenced by and actively influence
their environments.

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Social cognition

Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people

What Is Social Cognition?

 The processes involved in perceiving other people and how we learn

Another important topic in social cognition is the concept of social

Social cognition is not simply a topic within social psychology—it is an

Questions you might ask include:

 How do you form an impression of this person?

Development of Social Cognition

Children become more adept at understanding how others feel, learning

 During the earliest stages of development, children are

It is the emergence of a theory of mind that is critical to being able to

Disorders That Impact Social Cognition

Cultural Differences in Social Cognition

As people interpret behavior, extract meaning from the interaction, and

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