Essay about Social Cognition - Psychology - 1410 Words

Term Paper: Social Cognition Table of Contents: Social Cognition: A science The psychological definitions Breakdown of social psychology Relations to other corresponding theories The theory of social cognition Incorporating stereotypes Schemata Cultural social cognition Holistic thinking Social cognitive neuroscience A personality in jeopardy Social Cognition Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, of information in the brain. It is a process that is generalized within a species, and relates to members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the methods of cognitive†¦show more content†¦An example would be a student who believes all teachers are intimidating and bossy from past experiences, but after having a shy and timid teacher, their view may change their internal schema and stereotype of all teachers being individual. Scientists may want to study the reactions of the student and how he or she will integrate the new schema. Social cognition researchers are also interested to study the regulation of activated schemas. It is widely perceived that the situational activation of schemata is automatic, outside of conscious control. However, the regulation and activation of social sche mas is self-regulatory and independently motivated. To understand social cognition, a reaction based on internal and automatic thought processes, you must first understand the deeper function behind the reaction. This practice is called social psychology. In this field, psychologists typically explain human behavior as being a result of mental interferences, mental states, and immediate social situations. Human behavior is certainly less complex than the general population may believe. There are only so many reactions that a human will typically choose in response to activities and situations, and almost all do. To discover what these reactions are and what they have been, a scientist or psychologist needs to put the test subject under existential experiments. InShow MoreRelatedSocial Cognition And Social Psychology1412 Words   |  6 Pageshuman beings are social creatures, they are able to create families, religions, cultures and so on. These socializations help humans stay alive by creating support systems, fending off threats, an d tending to each other’s wounds. Because of this, ancestral humans were able to survive. They evolved with neural and hormonal mechanisms supporting their helpful social behavior. Learning and assessing this social behavior is a huge chunk of what inspires the study of social psychology. When we try andRead MoreSchemas: Psychology and Social Cognition1582 Words   |  7 PagesSchema Theory 1. Introduction A schema contains both abstract knowledge and speciï ¬ c examples about a particular social object. It ‘provides hypotheses about incoming stimuli, which includes plans for interpreting and gathering schema-related information. Schemas therefore give us some sense of prediction and control of the social world. They guide what we attend to, what we perceive, what we remember and what we infer. All schemas appear to serve similar functions – they all inï ¬â€šuence the encodingRead MoreHow Social Schemas Theory and Related Research Contributes to Our Understanding of the Way in Which People Evaluate and React in Their Social Environment1525 Words   |  7 PagesHow social schemas theory and related research contributes to our understanding of the way in which people evaluate and react in their social environment Cognitive representations of social situations are referred to as schemas. These are mental structures, active in our brain, providing us with a knowledge store which determines how we view our social surroundings. These schemas are built from organised pre-registered data which determine our reactions to, and perceptions of, everyday lifeRead MoreSocial Psychology : A Unique Subfield Of Psychology1474 Words   |  6 PagesSocial psychology is a unique subfield of psychology. The history of the psychology dates back in 387 BC when Plato had inferred that the human brain is a device comprising of mental structures. Charles Darwin coined the theory of evolution called â€Å"Survival of the Fittest† when he disseminated his On the Origin of Species in 1859. Many other names have made major contributions in the field of psychology. However, it was Leon Festinger, in 1957, who propositioned his postulation of â€Å" CognitiveRead MoreApplied Social Psychology On Psychology9 81 Words   |  4 Pages Applied social psychology 2 Applied social psychology is one way that psychologist can study our thought, feeling and belief, and how we function around each other, in our everyday lives, here are the five issues that I will be addressing in my literature review they are social influence, Attribution Theory, Group polarization, Cognitive dissonance theory, and Observational Learning. Social applied psychologyRead MoreExploring the Formation of â€Å"Perspective Fixedness† Through Established Theories1100 Words   |  5 Pagesfixedness and its main example, stereotypes, is that it permeates all levels of society and cognition. This leads to high-tension interpersonal situations where an enforced stereotype is adapted into one’s psychology as fact rather than a loose generalization. References Ahlfinger, N., Esser, J. K. (2001). Testing the groupthink model: Effects of promotional leadership and conformity predisposition. Social Behavior and Personality, 29(1), 31-41. doi:10.2224/sbp.2001.29.1.31 Auwarter, A. E., Read MoreImplicit Personality Theory and Stereotypes1650 Words   |  7 PagesAccording to Baron, Byrne Suls in their book Attitudes: Evaluating the social world. (1989) they defined the term Social Psychology as â€Å"the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations†. (p. 6). There are many concepts of social perception, two of these that will be looked at in this essay are Implicit Personality Theory and stereotypes. Implicit personality theory describes the beliefs, biases and assumptions, that an individual usesRead MoreImmigration Is A Current And Contemporary Issue948 Words   |  4 Pagesissue, especially in areas such as politics, media and education. Psychology offers an important view on this topic as research in this area helps with the development of policies and with raising awareness of this small but growing area of the population. Paragraph 1 – research on discrimination – why does it occur †¢ Richards (1997) – Most racist beliefs derive from the idea that there is a biological hierarchy between different social groups based on perceived racial differences. This belief thatRead MoreHow Do Implicit Attitudes Influence How We Respond to Other?1252 Words   |  6 Pagesperson’s awareness which nonetheless have measurable effects on people’s response times to stimulations† (Grinnell, 2009). This is a topic of importance on reading within the field of social psychology. According to Haddock Maio (2004), â€Å"The Attitude conception has long formed an essential paradigm in social psychology†. Asch (1940) argued that the main route â€Å"in inï ¬â€šuence is not change in attitudes toward an individual but rather change in the deï ¬ nition and meaning of the individual† (Wood, 2000)Read MoreThe Outcome Of The 2016 Election Essay1625 Words   |  7 Pageswhen looking at the theories and ideas in political psychology, the election of Republican nominee Donald Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is not entirely shocking. Cognitive dissonance theory, schemas and heuristics, and social influence, specifically conformity, can all help to explain why Donald Trump is America’s new president-elect. Cognitive dissonance is defined as â€Å"when people encounter an inconsistency between any two cognitions† (Haas, Lecture, October 11, 2016). These conflicting