Interpersonal Cognition

Definition

Interpersonal cognition is the set of mental processes by which people think about their interactions and relationships with others. Research in the area of interpersonal cognition aims to understand how people perceive the many layers of information present in social interactions and how they process this information and [Page 496]store it in memory. A major goal of this research is to understand how people's thoughts, feelings, and behavior in social interactions are influenced by expectations based on past interactions. In particular, researchers often consider the idea that how people think about themselves is influenced by the relationships that they have with others.

Background and History

Interpersonal cognition research grew rapidly in the 1990s, as researchers expanded their view of social cognition beyond looking at social objects in isolation and acknowledged the importance of considering interpersonal experiences. That is, whereas the broader area of social cognition looks at how social information about self and about others is dealt with, interpersonal cognition research considers that complex patterns of interaction between self and others are also perceived, processed, stored, and recalled. A person might come to believe that trusting others makes that person likely to be taken advantage of, for example, or that treating others with respect leads them to respond warmly in return. This expectancy might influence the kinds of information the person pays attention to in new interactions, the kinds of inferences he or she draws about other people's behavior, and the kinds of memories the person stores to draw on in the future.

Thought processes about interpersonal interaction are strongly linked with motivation and emotion. It has been argued, for example, that through evolution humans have developed a powerful need to belong. Thus, people are motivated to assess, process, and encode their interpersonal encounters in terms of whether they are being rejected or accepted. Perceptions of rejection can trigger powerful negative emotions, such as shame, anxiety, and sadness. Other motives, including desires to be respected, admired, or feared, can trigger other emotions as well.

Measuring Interpersonal Cognition

Assessing interpersonal cognition is done in two primary ways: explicitly and implicitly. An explicit measure of interpersonal cognition relies on a person reporting how he or she feels about his or her social interactions. For example, measures of attachment ask people about how they feel in a romantic relationship (e.g., “When romantic partners disapprove of me, I feel really bad about myself”). On the other hand, implicitly measuring variables associated with interpersonal cognition allows researchers to tap into thoughts and feelings that a person might not be aware of. For example, a lexical decision task can measure people's automatic cognitive associations between failure and rejection, and success and acceptance. In this task, participants classify letter-strings that appear on a computer screen as either a word or not a word. If a person is faster to identify a rejection-related word (e.g., disliked) right after seeing a failure-related word (e.g., mistake), this can be taken as evidence that the person holds a cognitive association between failure and rejection. Studies have shown that associations of this kind give rise to an interpersonal script, which usually takes the form of an “if-then” contingency. For example, people with low self-esteem are most likely to show the expectancy that “If I fail, then I will be rejected (by others)” and also to show a general sensitivity to social rejection.

...