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
Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate social situations. For example, a person will react a certain way give the type of mood they are in, as in appositive or negative mood. If something would normally agitate a person and lead that person to emotional outbursts if in a bad mood, then they person may find it easier to laugh off annoyances if in a good mood. Social psychology theories tend to be specific and focused, rather than global and general. If they were generalized on a wide scale, then they would be judged as biased and stereotyped. Social psychology is an interdisciplinary domain that bridges the gap between psychology and sociology.
During the years immediately following World War II, there was frequent collaboration between psychologists and sociologists. However, the two disciplines have become increasingly specialized in recent years, and with the areas of study becoming so vast and full of new information it has caused them to become isolated from each other. Sociologists now focus on macro variables, which describe social structure, to a much greater extent. Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology remain an important counterpart to psychological research in this area.
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