This document provides an overview of key concepts in social cognition. It discusses how social cognition involves mentally representing social situations and making inferences from social information. There are two main types of information processing: automatic processing that is fast, intuitive and unconscious, and controlled processing that is slower, more logical and conscious. Schemas are mental frameworks that help organize social knowledge and influence how information is perceived and remembered. Heuristics are mental shortcuts used to make quick judgments, though they may not always be accurate.

1. Chapter 4
Social Cognition

2. Introduction
• Social cognition is a combination of two words, that is, ‘social’, that of course speaks about the social
context or set-up, and ‘cognition', that has to do with mental processing.
• Social cognition deals with the mental representation or interpretation of our social set-up or surrounding. It
can be described as area of study that focuses on how inferences are drawn from social information.
• Social cognitions can also be described as a scientific approach in order to understand the social situations
from cognitive dimension.
• It focuses on how information from social settings is processed and represented by individuals, and how
this information is then used to understand and interpret the world around us.
• Moscowitz (2005, p. 3) defined social cognition as 'the study of mental processes involved in perceiving,
attending to, remembering, thinking about, and making sense of the people in our social world'.
• Social cognition can also be described as a group of processes that are interrelated and includes making
perceptions, paying attention, thinking and deriving meaning about oneself and others.

3. Stages of Information Processing
1. Perception of information by the person
2. The information received from the senses becomes
meaningful
3. Interpretation of information and conclusion
4. Response or our reaction.

4. Social Inference
Social cognition is about how people make inferences. Thus,
we also need to focus on this related term: social inference.
Social inference involves the following steps:
1. Gathering of information
2. Integration of information
3. Integration of information

5. Automatic and Controlled Processing
• Human beings possess two processing systems, automatic (referred to as X system) and controlled processing
(referred to as C system) that both exist in our brain and try to control the mental system. The main difference
between these two processing systems is that the automatic system is not conscious and lacks or has low
conscious awareness as it operates and the controlled processing displays higher level of conscious awareness.
• When compared with the automatic processing, the controlled processing is slow and involves effort, though it
is sequential, intentional and logical. On the other hand, the automatic processing is unintentional, intuitive and
efficient.
• The controlled processes deal with problems that are abstract and general, whereas the automatic processes are
restricted to problems that are narrowly defined. The automatic processes are based on implicit memory and is
dependent on the context whereas the controlled processes requires concrete working memory and can be
dissociated from the context.

6. Automatic and Controlled Processing
• According to Lieberman et al (2002) the X system (also referred to as System 1) engages in parallel
processing and consists of the amygdala, basil ganglia, lateral temporal, ventromedial prefrontal and dorsal
anterior cingulate cortexes. Involved primarily with conscious processes, the C system (also referred to as
System 2) is composed mostly of lateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortexes besides the hippocampus
and medial temporal lobe region”
• The term automaticity can be discussed in this context. Automaticity can be defined as the 'extent to which
a given event is unintentional, occurs without conscious awareness, is accomplished efficiently and once
begun cannot be controlled' (Barrett, 2017, p. 85).
• There are also various types of automatic processes, including the processes that are first explicitly learned
and then they become automatic.

7. Schemas
• Schemas can be explained as 'mental structures people use to organise their knowledge
about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people
notice, think about and remember' (Aronson et al, 2014, p. 59).
• They can be described as the expectations that we have about a particular situation or
person.
• According to Fiske and Taylor (1991), schemas are a set of cognitions about a particular
concept that is organised and structured.
• Schemas seems to be of great help and relevance going by the features we discussed
previously; however, they can also interfere with perception of situations and people.
• Development of stereotypes on the basis of schemas can be very dangerous as individuals
make wrong inferences.

8. Some of the important aspects about schemas are as follows:
 Individuals will interpret new information related to social situations, social roles, objects and people based on
schemas.
 They also help in identifying the important aspects of the social situations and stimulus.
 They help make information received by us more structured and organised.
 They also helps in quick processing of information that may be relevant for schemas.
 They also help in not only remembering information but also interpreting it and make inferences. Thus, they
enhance our memory.
 They also assist by providing guidelines that can determine the interaction with others.
 One of the important features of schemas is that most of the time they have hierarchical organization.
Schemas Cont….

9. Schemas Cont….
They also assists in deal with missing information by filling the gaps with the help of schema-consistent
information.
 They also helps an individuals in using his/ her past experience in new situations.
 Further, schemas help in altering the way we in which we process information.
 Expectations about what may happen next are also dealt with by schemas. These expectations determine whether
we are going to find the situation or an individual pleasant or unpleasant. If our experience and expectations are
consistent, then we are pleased, and if there is inconsistency between our expectation and experience, we are
displeased. For example, an individual’s schemas may make him/her believe that due to the hard work that he/she
has put in, he/she will be considered for a higher position in the organization. If the expectations of this person are
fulfilled, he/she will be pleased; if not, he/she will be displeased.
 Schemas also consist of an emotional component. This is called as schema-driven affect.
 Though many a times we share same schemas with other regarding people and social situation, sometimes, there
can be schemas that are personal and are influenced by values and interests of the individual. Thus, individual
differences do exist with regard to schemas to some extent.

10. Factors That Determine Which Schema Is Used
• Natural Contours
• Salience
• Roles
• Primacy
• Priming
• Importance
• Individual differences
• Goals

11. Cognitive Heuristics
• The term heuristics has been derived from a Greek word that means ‘discover’. In the field
of social cognition, heuristics can be used to make quick and efficient judgements, though it
is not necessarily that these judgements are always accurate.
• Heuristics can be termed as decision-making rules that are simple and often used in order to
draw quick and easy conclusions.
• These can be described as the specific rules of processing.
• They can be termed as mental shortcuts used to reduce or minimise mental efforts.
• As stated by Tversky and Kahneman (1974, p. 1124), 'People rely on a limited number of
heuristic principles which reduce the complex tasks of assessing probabilities and predicting
values to simpler judgemental operations.
• In general, these heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic
errors'.

12. Some Commonly Used Heuristics
Representative heuristics
Availability heuristic
Simulation heuristic
Anchoring heuristic