Definition of Social Cognition

Social cognition refers to a set of internal (cognitive) processes that through their integration allow the adequate interaction of the individual in the social environment in which finds.

According to Aristotle's philosophical position, human beings are social animals, possibly the greatest of all, since almost from the beginning of his life he requires living in a society of harmonious way. Living in society, human beings require proper socialization patterns. Although in some cases we may have a series of rules and roles that tell us how we should behave in the situation in which we find ourselves, what happens in ambiguous situations in which we do not have a clear script behavioral? How do we carry out the judgment that would indicate the best way to act in that uncertain situation?; well, it is in the processes that integrate social cognition where the answers to these questions are found.

Social cognition should be understood as a set of internal processes that allow and facilitate the interaction between individuals of a social or cultural group, and therefore represent an element crucial. Social cognition is based on the exchange of socially shared information and in the form of signals that enable the acquisition of information from the rest of the subjects that are part of the situation that is being carried out cape. That is to say, although there will be occasions in which there will not be clearly defined rules to determine how we should act, in the same environment and in the behavior of other people we will find implicit information that will give us some clarity about how we behave. As previously mentioned, social cognition does not refer to a single process, rather, to a set of processes; Some of them are described below.

Accessibility and facilitation

As mentioned at the beginning of this text, the elements of social cognition arise when we are faced with ambiguous situations. These situations can be interpreted in different ways by the people who are experiencing them. An element that allows the interpretation of this is the accessibility that refers to the "ease" that we have to be able to extract from our memory the information of a construct to determine if the situation is one of hostility or cordiality. In this way, the more accessible the information about a stimulus, the faster the interpretation of the situation will be. Along the same lines, accessibility is complemented by another process called facilitation, which refers to all those methods that are not intrusive but that expose individuals to relevant information for the evaluation of the situation, some authors consider that facilitation can also refer to the priming effect (for more information on this last phenomenon, it is suggested to review chapter 11 "Anchors" of the book Thinking fast, thinking slowly by Daniel Kahnemann*)

According to the investigation around these phenomena, it seems that some individuals have a permanent accessibility to certain elements; thus, these people tend to interpret reality according to these elements. A problem associated with permanent accessibility is that people can see their reality from only one perspective.

Assimilation and contrast effects

Although the situation may be ambiguous in the sense of the absence of clear behavioral scripts, it is not exempt from a context that will influence the interpretation. In this way, the context refers to all those factors that make up the situation that is being carrying out and that influence expectations, goals, experiences, and even states of mind. cheer up. In this sense, it is recognized that when we make interpretations of reality, we do so based on the compatibility with accessible elements (e.g., if we are in a bad mood, we interpret reality with a vision pessimistic). However, there are times when the facilitation effect can occur continuously. to the effect of accessibility, causing there to be a "re-evaluation" based on this new information; This phenomenon is called the contrast effect.

attributions

Social cognition not only allows making judgments about what behavior to perform, it also allows us to give explanations to the events and events that we experience. The theory of attributions developed by Fritz Heider proposes that individuals are "psychologists naive", because we always try to give a possible explanation to the behaviors that we observe that are carried out By others. In this sense, the attributions that we make can be internal or external; Regarding the former, behaviors are explained by individual characteristics (e.g., personality traits, intelligence, etc.). For their part, external attributions refer to the explanation of situational elements of the context.

References

Kimble, C., Hirt, E., Diaz-Loving, R., Hosch, H., Lucker, G. W. & Zarate M. (2002) Chapter 8. Social influence: Obedience, conformity and complacency. in c. Kimble, E. Hirt, R. Diaz-Loving, H. Hosch, G.W. Lucker & M. Zárate (Eds.) Social Psychology of the Americas. (1st. Ed. pp. 197-224). pearson.