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.
Social Cognition Research Topics:
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.
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