Social Cognition

For thousands of years there has been philosophical debate about what it is that makes humans different from other species of animals on Earth. Whether one believes that humans are just another step in the evolutionary process or descended from aliens, there is no denying that humans are different from other animals. Although many aspects of psychology, such as perception, learning, and memory, can be generalized across species, the field of social cognition deals exclusively with thoughts and behaviors that are (arguably) uniquely human. This is because social cognition is concerned with the mental processes that subserve people's understanding of both self and other individuals. By default, it takes a social agent to know one. For this reason, a great deal of social cognition research has focused on determining whether or not the thoughts people have about other people are driven by the same basic mental operations that regulate humans' understanding of tables, automobiles, and seafood gumbo. For example, are there dedicated systems that deal with information about the social world and its diverse inhabitants?

Social cognition draws heavily on material within cognitive psychology and social psychology to examine the relationship between basic cognitive operations and fundamental social problems. In this respect, work in this domain has attempted to show that, during his or her lifetime, an individual's thoughts and behaviors are influenced by his or her preceding social experiences, but at the same time, these experiences are modified by the individual's current behaviors. This dynamic relationship between cognition and social experience means that social cognition affects almost every area of human existence. To help explain the importance of social cognition in everyday life, this entry will explore what it would perhaps be like to try to live without the capacity to understand self and others. The examples that follow will therefore speculate on what it would be like if you encountered an alien (called Todf) who was human-like in every respect, apart from the fact that Todf has no social-cognitive abilities. Would such a person be able to cope with everyday social situations?

One of the central topics in social cognition is person perception, the way in which people collect and use information about other people to guide their interactions with them. From infancy, humans have an in-built preference for human beings (i.e., social agents) over other objects, and the face is a stimulus of particular interest. Even before humans can walk or talk, they begin to learn the skills of nonverbal communication that provide them with their first interactive social experiences. Within only a few months of birth, human infants can decode facial expressions and begin to make sense of their social world and the people around them. Imagine the problems that Todf would experience if he were unable to produce and decipher the meaning inherent in facial expressions; successful social interaction would be beyond his grasp. Humans constantly rely on very subtle facial cues to determine what other people are intending (e.g., I'm going to kiss you), thinking (e.g., You look just like Pamela Anderson), and feeling (e.g., I love you). People can usually determine from a face whether someone is behaving threateningly toward them, when a friend is entertained by an anecdote, or when a partner is annoyed by one's behavior. Although it is possible to use language to convey the contents of their inner mental lives, frequently people rely on faces to do the talking. Without such a capacity, Todf would be mind blind.

...