Social cognition and description about it, Study notes of Psychology

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Social Cognition

Social CognitionSocial Cognition  (^) Social cognition can be defined as the structure, the process, and the content of knowledge.  (^) It shapes the way we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world.

• (^) Social cognition is cognition that relates to social activities that helps us to understand and predict the behavior of ourselves and others.  (^) Social forces play a key factor in shaping cognition.  (^) Cognition is thought, it is not emotions or behavior. However, it relates to these constructs.

SchemaSchema

• (^) Mental structures that help organize knowledge about the social world and guide the selection, interpretation, and recall of information.
• (^) Schema develops with the help of two processes: Assimilation and Accommodation
• (^) When existing schemas change on the basis of new information, we call the process accommodation.
• (^) Assimilation is a process in which our existing knowledge influences new conflicting information to better fit with our existing knowledge, thus reducing the likelihood of schema change.

What do schemas do?What do schemas do?

• Help us organize information

• Help us remember certain things

• Help us to fill in details when our

information is incomplete

• Can influence behavior

• Help us to interpret ambiguous

behavior

• Influence what information we attend to

Positive aspect of Schema

• (^) Schemas help us make sense of the world
• (^) They increase our efficiency
• (^) They often operate automatically, without

conscious awareness

• (^) But, they can sometimes lead to errors in

judgment!

Sources of Social Knowledge

• (^) Operant Learning: the principle that we learn new information as a result of the consequences of our behavior. According to operant learning principles, experiences that are followed by positive emotions ( reinforcements or rewards ) are likely to be repeated, whereas experiences that are followed by negative emotions (punishments ) are less likely to be repeated. In operant learning, the person learns from the consequences of his or her own actions.

Sources of Social Knowledge

• (^) Observational Learning: people learn by observing the behavior of others. This is known as observational learning (modelling). Bandura considered observational learning to be a fundamental determinant of all social behavior and argued that it is most likely to lead to learning when people pay attention to the behavior of models and are highly motivated to imitate the models.