Social Cognition

The field of social cognition concerns individuals’ thought processes in the context of the social world—how people think about themselves and other people. Although rooted in social psychology, social cognition is an interdisciplinary area of study and borrows from other fields, such as communication, developmental psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. In addition, social cognitive theory and research can be applied to real-world contexts, such as the legal system, health care, and marriage counseling. This entry provides an overview of the methodological tools and procedures used to study social cognition. Common critiques of these methods are also discussed.

Social cognition describes how a person reacts to stimuli and their response to it. The stimuli are often people or aspects/attributes of people that are related to the social world. Researchers interested in social cognition commonly seek to understand (a) mental representations, (e.g., schemas, which are cognitive elements that can be activated and made accessible to influence perceptions), (b) the cognitive processes involved in the reactions based on perceptions of observable stimuli and observable responses, and (c) communicative or social processes and outcomes that are related to social cognition. This characteristic of social cognition differs slightly from examining observable responses alone, which emphasizes the outcome over the entire process; social cognition focuses more on the entire process than just its end. Social cognition differs from cognition in its emphasis on people, as people are different than objects and are able to simultaneously perceive and be the subject of perception. However, this process is complex because people are multidimensional; people vary their behavior and attitudes according to how they think they are being [Page 1619]perceived. Such metaperceptions, of course, are not infallible and are susceptible to inaccuracies, which add to the complexity.

The methodological approaches employed to examine social cognition are a defining feature of social cognition research. Although the measurement tools often draw from other fields (e.g., cognitive psychology), when combined with its theoretical impetus, social cognition provides a unique vantage point from which to understand human behavior and perception.