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Social Cognition Running head: SOCIAL COGNITION Social Cognition Dana R. Carney & Mahzarin R. Banaji Harvard University Not final version – please do not cite without permission 1 Social Cognition 2 Social Cognition Human beings are social animals. They think feel and act, involving themselves, others, and larger collectives throughout every moment of the day. The enormous yet seemingly natural tasks of social perception, social memory, and social decision-making in which the species engages, and the byproducts of such work constitutes the study of social cognition. To examine how social cognition unfolds, scientists have studied mental processes to learn about representations of the social world and the invisible mechanisms by which the world is acted upon: through the attitudes, beliefs, intentions and behavior of social agents. The study of social cognition, in a sense, is more than a century old, if we look to the earliest studies in social psychology conducted to examine the effects of others on the individual (Triplett, 1898). It emerged as an explicit field in the late 1970’s with the merger of social and cognitive psychology (Fiske & Taylor, 1st edition; 2nd edition; Hastie, et al., 1980; Ostrom, 1984). The the first edition of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology to carry the subheading in 1981 was issue 40, volume 1. In the last few years, the definition of social cognition has been more broadly applied, not only in social psychology and social neuroscience but also in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and primatology (Adolphs, 2001; Banaji, Baron, Dunham, & Olson, in press; Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005; Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2004; Santos, Nissen, & Ferrugia, 2006). Overview of Chapter There is no finite set of topics that comprises social cognition because the field’s boundaries continue to grow. It is worthwhile to summarize the topics that have constituted the study of social cognition, primarily over these past 30 years, as taken together they constitute a historically meaningful starting point. In this chapter we select what we regard to be the most Social Cognition 3 robust and compelling evidence that forms the basis for the study of social cognition with an emphasis on a recent diversification of the concept. In so doing, we will identify, with the broadest strokes, the early work and focus upon the most recent developments in social neuroscience, animal cognition, and infant and early childhood development. Such a review should provide a springboard to questions of methodology and theory, although the primary focus will remain on discoveries about how the mind operates in its natural social habitat. The first sets of recent social cognition studies were conducted under the rubric of person perception and person memory (e.g, Gilbert, 1998; Hastie et al., 1980). Explicit practical links were made at this early stage to the law, in the form of understanding eyewitness identification and jury decision-making (e.g., Hastie, Landsman, & Loftus, 1978). Influenced by the work of Solomon Asch and early attribution theories, social cognition modernized the study of social trait inference, impression formation, and attribution processes beginning in the early 1980’s (e.g., Gilbert Pelham, Krull, 1988; Ross, 1977; Smith & Miller, 1979; Trope, 1986). Other related work simultaneously focused on identifying the essential architecture of social cognition, including the basics of automatic and controlled processing (e.g., Banaji & Greenwald, 1995; Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982; Bargh & Thien, 1985; Devine, 1989), the study of attitudes, preferences, and evaluation (e.g., Smith, 1984; Smith & Lerner, 1986; Fazio & Zanna, 1978; Fazio, 1986). Further work of note includes studies of group perception and the end products of stereotyping and intergroup relations (Brewer, 1979; Brewer, 1988; Erber & Fiske, 1984; Hamilton, 1981; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). Some of these studies produced results that were revolutionary. Others offered groundwork upon which subsequent scientific giants now stand. Together, these findings all point to one fundamental, critical aspect of the human social mind: the deeply embedded and Social Cognition 4 critically adaptive need to belong (for an extensive review, see Fiske, 2004). It is this need that lays the groundwork for all study of what it means to be a social creature. There is no more fitting way to begin this chapter than with the research that documents the profound human need to belong and the processes that emerge from this orientation. Social Intimacy and the Fundamental Need to Belong There is broad consensus that social attachment and the need to belong to other humans is critical to survival (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Fiske, 2004; Stevens & Fiske, 1995). Through social interaction we garner emotional and resource support that fosters relationships with potential mates, family and kin, and larger social networks. The need for social interaction goes deep. Social networks within human and other animal species act as a buffer against stress and protect health. Mother rats found to lick their babies had offspring that were more resistant to and better buffered stressors relative to offspring from non-licking mothers. We now know that that the act of licking releases oxytocin in a pup which likely acts as a buffer against stress (Francis, Diorio, Liu, & Meaney, 1999; Liu, Diorio, Day, Francis, Meaney, 2000). In humans, there are many documented cases of child abuse and neglect, such as the famous case of Genie, which show that if raised without simple social interaction, a person will never develop normal language or social skills (Candland, 1993; Curtiss 1977). Similarly, work on social rejection shows how very basic it is. Human work by Eisenberger, Lieberman, and Williams (2003) showed that the same regions of the brain (ventral prefrontal cortex) subserving actual physical pain are the same regions activated when humans are targeted by social rejection. Thus, a sense of the self as being included or excluded, and reaping the emotional and physical benefits of inclusion are critical to mental and physical health and well-being. Social Cognition 5 A dominant perspective in social anthropology, communications, and social psychology is Relational Models Theory offered by A. P. Fiske (1992) in which most aspects of human sociality are described by a 4-part model which includes: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. This theory describes the four primary ways in which humans can and do relate to one another. Each principle in the theory clearly implicates the finitude of resources along with the need to belong, negotiate, and maintain some sort of legitimacy and equilibrium as underlying human organization. As such, societies must be structured hierarchically in order to distribute these resources in an evolutionarily adaptive manner. The principles of A.P. Fiske’s model are each echoed by one or more of the three most dominant theories to describe social structure found in social cognition and social psychology: Social Identification, Social Dominance, and System Justification. To demonstrate consensus among the principles outlined in these theories, this section will be organized with the principles outlined by the broadest and most interdisciplinary among them, A. P. Fiske’s Relational Models Theory. The four basic principles of A. P. Fiske’s (1992) anthropological Relational Models Theory are: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Communal Sharing describes egalitarian relations between members of a dyad or group. In such a communal group, individuals are equivalent. Further, members of a communal sharing group are unified in protecting the group from out-group members. Social structures like these are considered to be unique, uncommon, and temporally fleeting in modern social psychological theory. To illustrate the latter principle of communal sharing as temporally fleeting, consider Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) Social Identity Theory which describes the cognitive and motivational crux of the division between the self and other. Their work showed the mere task of categorizing Social Cognition 6 oneself and others into different groups led people to prefer other individuals from their in-group. In particular, preferring one’s in-group, according to Tajfel and Turner (1986) is: (1) the extent to which one feels similar to other in-group members, and (2) the extent to which the situational context promotes comparison between oneself and others. For a moment, when one’s in-group is novel, we see some evidence of A. P. Fiske’s communal sharing in that the self is equivalent to other members of the in-group and a negative evaluation of any out-group member is immediately and automatically evoked. Data supporting Social Identity Theory sparked the beginning of what the field of social cognition now regards as a difficult, but accepted truth: that the formation of in- and out-groups is an automatic, fundamental, and perhaps even adaptive social necessity. Consensus among researchers studying intergroup relations is that we cannot deny this part of our evolutionary history, but we can decide when we should act on it and when we should curb it. However strongly unified a particular in-group, Social Dominance Theory describes human society as consisting of oppressive group-based hierarchical structures. According to the theory, individual people possess varying levels of preference for social dominance (Sidanius & Pratto, 1993; 1999). The key principle of the theory is that societies are stratified by age, sex and group. Group divisions are based on ethnicity, religion, nationality, etc. Consistent with A. P. Fiske’s (1992) notion of communal sharing and Turner and Tajfel’s (1986) Social Identity Theory, Social Dominance Theory implies that communal sharing is higher within stratified groups than between them. However, at the core of Social Dominance Theory and departing from communal sharing, A. P. Fiske also describes how groups can be structured hierarchically. A. P. Fiske’s (1992) principle of authority ranking is very similar to Sidanius and Pratto’s (1993; 1999) theory of social dominance. Both theories describe how people have asymmetrical Social Cognition 7 roles in a hierarchy. In Social Dominance Theory, human social hierarchies are configured in a Nietzcheian manner with “good” groups at the top and “evil” reference groups at the bottom— each of which needs the other to exist. More powerful social roles are increasingly likely to be occupied by a “good” group member (e.g., white male). Evidence shows that males are more dominant than females and they possess more political power; predictably, most high-status positions are held by males (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Prejudiced beliefs such as racism, sexism, nationalism and classism are all manifestations of this same principle of social hierarchy. The origin of social hierarchies is given an evolutionary explanation: prehistoric human societies organized in hierarchies were more efficient at combat than non-hierarchical groups, giving a competitive advantage to groups disposed towards social hierarchies (Sidanius & Pratto). Like mitigating the automatic impact of the need to form in- and out-groups, one can exert conscious will over one’s natural tendency to be socially dominance oriented. However, more likely and perhaps with greater ease, one can generate rationales for why such social structures exist. The notion of legitimacy in social hierarchy is at the core of A. P. Fiske’s authority ranking and is a departure from Social Dominance Theory which does not necessarily imply that the structure is legitimate (although parts of it can be). Authority ranking relationships are based on perceptions of legitimate asymmetries in social structure and not on coercive power and, thus, are not naturally exploitative. This aspect of authority ranking, justifying and/or legitimizing a hierarchically organized social structure, is best described by System Justification Theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994). Data supporting system justification theory show that humans are naturally inclined to uphold a hierarchical structure by rationalizing its existence (e.g., Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). System Justification Theory describes the human tendency to perceive and defend the status quo as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable (Jost & Banaji). People will go to great Social Cognition 8 lengths to rationalize events in life because they want to believe that the world is just (Lerner, 1980). Further, marginalized social groups are ironically most likely to justify the status quo of the social system. In so doing, the theory makes sense out of previously counter-intuitive findings showing that disadvantaged group-members often support the societal status quo even if it is costly to them and/or their close in-group members. Two additional principles of A. P. Fiske’s (1992) relational models theory do more to describe the workings of a society than its structure. Equality matching describes how people, dyads, collectives, or groups keep track (consciously or unconsciously) of costs and benefits so that equilibrium between people or groups can be maintained. This principle describes how communal sharing and otherwise cohesive in-groups maintain balance. Of note, this principle is echoed by research in sociology and communications on the theory of social exchange (Blau, 1964). Market pricing is the final of four principles outlined by A. P. Fiske and describes relationships that are defined by socially meaningful valuables (e.g., money, goods, a person’s labor, etc.). A modern and socially acceptable example of this kind of relationship is one between a tenant and a landlord. Slavery, prostitution, marriage for dowry and other such social contracts are also examples of market pricing relationships. One compelling interpretation of this principle is that at its core lies the notion of the “economic worth of an individual.” Market pricing, then, lies at the core of differential valuation of people and accordant stratification in society as described by both social dominance theory and authority ranking. Together, these four theories offer the backdrop of human social structure. Most fundamental, the need to belong to other social beings is the glue that unites them to describe most every social relation. To summarize, the principal axes running through these four theories are: (1) humans need to belong and can only successfully exist in social groups, (2) many social Social Cognition 9 groups are hierarchically organized, (3) there is more cohesion and communal sharing within- as opposed to across—stratifications, (4) groups lower in status receive fewer resources and are liked less, and (5) everyone in the group rationalizes that a social structure’s hierarchy is legitimate and just. Our theoretical treatment of social group structure leaves wide open the question of how we come to organize ourselves and one another. To begin examination of how, the study of social cognition tells us to look at the minds of people. At the core of every single social transaction is a thinking person thinking about other thinking persons; in two words, social cognition. Because social cognition is the premise upon which all social relational exchange rests, it is fair and critical to ask whether these processes recruit area of mind, body, and brain existing uniquely for this purpose. Because the need to belong and the need for belonging groups to organize is fundamental to survival, the notion that we evolved mechanisms to uniquely fit this purpose would seem true. Thus, in the next section we ask the critical question, is social cognition special? Is social cognition special? A social agent’s need for information about gender, kinship, and social standing of other social agents is critical for adaptive reproduction and general survival. The ability to recognize, assimilate, navigate and behave relative to socially important information requires relevant neural systems. Thus, specialized cognitive and neural mechanisms have likely evolved to uniquely process social information. Many recent and time-tested findings from both animal and human study support the thesis that social cognition, thinking and feeling about social agents, is indeed special. Social Cognition 10 Social cognition is the study of mind and brain phenomena and processes that underlie social perception, social judgment, and social influence in human and non-human animals. The beginning of research on social cognition was a phenomenon-focused enterprise which developed into both a phenomenonological and cognitive process-oriented approach. Early work focused on making sense of others’ personality and behavior. Effects identified by this work include systematically employed person-perception tendencies, some of which are shown to be veracious and others erroneous. Attribution research was also among the first topics studied at the dawn of social cognition. Work by Solomon Asch (1946) showed that impressions are formed about others spontaneously. Other early work showed how attributions are made (Kelley, 1967) which was then followed by work which identified forces that influence attributional processes. Social neuroscience has followed in the footsteps of social cognition in that some of the first topics that have been studied are basic attributional process. This has been fruitful and a good deal of information has been gleaned from this work even though it only began a short time ago. For example, work in neuroscience by Mitchell, Banaji, and Macrae (2005), Saxe and Kanwisher (2005) and others has shown that not only is trait attribution automatic, uncontrollable, and effortless (e.g., Willis & Todorov, 2006), but certain brain structures such as the medialPFC specifically subserve these attributions. At the nexus between social cognition and social neuroscience grows the question: is social cognition special? With new MRI technologies, we can now examine whether single or multiple processes converge when social creatures make sense of other social creatures. There is compelling and fundamental evidence that social cognition processes constitute a unique set of phenomena and may be located in morphologically distinct areas that do not subserve other types of general cognition. Neural and Molecular Substrates of Social Cognition in Non-Human Animals Social Cognition 11 Evidence suggests that even at the most basic level, studying the simplest social creatures, there is something unique about connecting to and interfacing with other social agents. Findings from the animal literature suggest that certain social exchanges such as reproduction behavior and parenting behavior can be traced to unique molecular and cellular mechanisms (Insel & Young 2000, Pfaff, Frohlich, & Morgan, 2002). The specificity of social mechanisms rises to a higher level of abstraction even in these simple animal species. For example, Lorenz (1935) suggested that animals’ perceptual worlds include critical information about others’ behaviors and the groups’ behaviors and that this perceptual and interpretative ability is likely critical to survival. Indeed, recognition of key social exchanges must have been important in shaping species’ phenotypes. In fact, the evolution of some species has been marked by uniquely developed sensory systems that facilitate social interaction. One such system is the detection of pheromones (Dulac & Torello, 2003). This system detects and recognizes species-specific olfactory signals which transmit details about sex, reproductive status, mate location, social status, and territory. Although scientific consensus believes in the basics of general mammalian pheromone systems, the existence of such a system in humans is still debated (Meredith 2001). Consistent with this work, infants of many species learn about parents and siblings from imprinting processes. Learning this social information is critical for survival and reproduction. Early preference acquisition has been studied in some detail. Research suggests that the more complex the stimulus (e.g., sound, motion, structure), the stronger the imprinting process (Bolhuis & Honey, 1998). Horn (1985) suggests there are particular sites in the brain responsible for imprinting in baby chicks (the intermediate and medial hyperstriatum ventrale--IMHV). Chicks with lesions in these areas could no longer imprint. Social Cognition 12 As we begin to extract from animal models to human, we can look to non-human primates for clues as to whether social cognition is a specialized set of processes. Indeed, research shows that cells and fields in the monkey temporal cortex respond to faces (Tsao, Freiwald, Knutsen, Mandeville, & Tootell, 2003). This link not only reflects what may exist in the human brain, but suggests that having a “social brain” may not exclude other social species. Neural Substrates of Social Cognition in Humans The most basic evidence for the uniqueness (i.e., that certain brain regions evolved – perhaps uniquely—to serve social cognitive processes) of social cognition in humans is evidence from human neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. These disorders are best described as deficits in normal social cognition which alter behavior (Lord, Cook, Leventhal, & Amaral, 2000). Volumes of research on autism now show that individuals with autism are generally unable to intuit the needs, wants, motivations, thoughts, intentions and feelings of other social agents (e.g., Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). On another and extremely base level, research shows that humans kept in social isolation or separated from others are at a serious risk for medical disorders and poor health (House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). These data suggest that social interaction is critical for normal immune and bodily function. Although this finding does not speak to the notion that social cognition is unique, it certainly underscores the critical role that social cognition plays in sustaining a normal healthy body. In more recent work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), findings from the human literature strongly suggest that social cognition uses specialized mind and brain locations and processes. For example, the fusiform gyrus (also known as the FFA or fusiform face area) in the occipital-temporal junction is critical for face recognition as well as other Social Cognition 13 complex visual percepts (Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore, & Anderson, 2000, Kanwisher et al, 1997. Patients with lesions in this area show face recognition deficits (e.g., prosopagnosia). This work helped to lay the basis for localizing brain functionality toward social phenomena. The application of fMRI to social phenomena has spawned volumes of articles on how, when, and where the “social brain” exists. fMRI studies have now shown a number of brain regions to specifically subserve social activity. Below is a table listing the brain regions and respective social functions harvested from fMRI research about which there is some degree of consensus and replication across paradigms (e.g., event-related vs. block design), lab groups, and imaging centers. Parts of the table below were adapted from Adolphs (2001) and augmented by findings from a number of studies published since 2001. Social cognitive process Affect regulation (corrective/inhibitory processes) Regions in normal brain dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex ventral lateral prefrontal cortex Biological motion (point of light displays) left parietal cortex right amygdala right superior temporal sulcus superior temporal sulcus Cooperation with a partner ventral bank of right occipital lobe dorsal medial prefrontal cortex Correlation with autism symptoms cingulate gyrus insula medial prefrontal cortex medial prefrontal cortex Detecting emotional expression superior temporal sulcus superior temporal sulcus Eye contact right amygdala Faces in social phobics amygdala Facial expressions focusing on the eyes amygdala Gaze and mouth movements in faces superior temporal sulcus Gaze discrimination left amygdala dorsal medial prefrontal cortex Impression formation Intentions (nonverbal) Mental state attribution right medial prefrontal cortex dorsal medial prefrontal cortex Social Cognition 14 orbitofrontal cortex Processing social vocalizations in nonhuman primates amygdala Recognizing emotions guilt, arrogance, and fear amygdala Romantic attachment anterior cingulated medial insula striatum Social judgment amygdala Social exclusion ventral prefrontal cortex Theory of mind (both verbal and nonverbal) cingulate gyrus medial prefrontal cortex Theory of mind (normals versus autistics) left medial prefrontal cortex Theory of mind (verbal) left medial prefrontal cortex Theory of mind (visual motion of simple shapes) amygdala left medial prefrontal cortex superior temporal sulcus Viewing faces of different race amygdala amygdala Viewing others’ actions motor cortex superior parietal lobule Viewing others’ hand actions left frontal cortex right superior parietal lobule General face processing FFA General regulatory processes and decision making OFC In terms of sheer frequency, there appear to be at least three areas that systematically show unique evidence of sociality. The most compelling evidence for an area of the human brain which is recruited in social processes, though it does not specifically subserve, is the amygdala. The amygdala appears to be engaged in the processing and sense-making of affective social stimuli. For example, the amygdala has been repeatedly shown to be active when processing threatening images and facial expressions of emotion including negative and positive emotions. However, the amygdala is also implicated in non-social threat processing and system readiness. A great deal of evidence also exists for areas of the medial prefrontal cortex—especially the dorsal region. These areas of the PFC appear to subserve attributions—trait, intention, and mental state attributions. Additionally, the ventral lateral and dorsal lateral areas appear to aid in Social Cognition 15 down-regulating the amygdala’s negative responses. In fact, the ventral and dorsal regions of the PFC can be thought of as affect regulation areas. These regions appear to strictly subserve social cognitive processes. The superior temporal sulcus (STS) is also recruited for social tasks; however, the pattern of activity is less clear. The STS is recruited when processing gaze, is less active in autism, and is recruited in viewing motor activity in point of light displays. The precise pattern of activity and the social cognitive processes the STS subserves seems to be an area ripe for further research. Findings for the cingulate mimic the (lack of) clear pattern found with the STS and is also, therefore, an area of the brain full of open social cognitive questions. Drawing the Line Between Self and Other One fascinating aspect about the process of engagement in social cognition lies within the blurred distinction between self and other. Evidence in non-human primates has emerged which suggests that we may see ourselves in others by simply watching them engage in similar behaviors. The very same involved neurons fire in our own brain as we watch another engage in a particular behavior. As such, the name of this system is self-reflective: the mirror neuron. Recent work by Jason Mitchell and his colleagues offers a strong starting point for this emerging research. Mitchell has shown that a very specific region of the medial PFC is engaged when making judgments of similar others (Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2004; Mitchell, Macrae, and Banaji, 2005). In fact, this precise area is also the area that research has shown to subserve judgments about the self (see, e.g., Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006). As described in the identification of social cognition as a special process, it is demonstrable that in the absence of social contact animals and humans tend to become ill and can even die. Without critical social skills in place, such as the ability to determine others’ gender, status, and intention, animals and humans are not safe. This is a basic need. To say that Social Cognition 16 basic social cognition is fundamental to adaptive social and physical functioning is no understatement. Indeed, the fundamental master of social cognition is the self. The self The Master of Social Cognition is the Self The most recent Annual Review of Psychology chapter published on the self (Banaji & Prentice, 1994) noted that the study of the self is at center stage in psychological science. Banaji and Prentice showed overwhelming evidence that the self directs both social cognition and social behavior. In essence, they argued that the master of social cognition is the self. So whom does the master serve? Evidence in this chapter suggest that the self is sustained by successful satiation of the need for others. This is well illustrated by research on molecular factors involved in self-sustenance reported elsewhere in this chapter. For example, evidence suggests that several neurotransmitters are disproportionately involved in affiliative behavior. In a variety of nonhuman mammalian species, oxytocin and vasopressin mediate affiliative and sexual behaviors (Young, Wang, & Insel, 1998). Voles show different mate affiliation (monogamous versus polygamous) as a result of different oxytocin systems in their brains; Oxytocin-knockout mice (i.e., mice rendered non-receptive to the effects of oxytocin) show abnormalities in their social behavior, including a social memory impairment. Some of these chemicals appear to exert an influence on humans as well. In humans, speculation exists that abnormalities in oxytocin neurotransmission may contribute to the social pathology of autism (Insel, O’Brien, & Leckman, 1999). Serotonin is another neurotransmitter linked to social behavior, especially with regard to social status and dominance in primates and in humans. As support for this, it is clear that SSRIs influence social behavior in humans (Knutson, et al., 1998). Social Cognition 17 The self is so critical to adaptive functioning; it is in part defined by and must be maintained through attachment to other social creatures. Banaji and Prentice (1994) suggest the two primary motives of the self are: self knowledge and self enhancement. Through social interaction we gather knowledge and support in addition to garnering emotional and resource support. The need for social interaction in sustaining the self goes even deeper. Humans and other animals benefit from social interaction, which acts as a buffer against stress. As discussed earlier in this chapter, animal work has shown that mother rats that lick their young vs. mother rats who did not had offspring that were more resistant to and better buffered stressors. Data suggest that the baby rats who receive licking behavior, a social attention, produced more oxytocin which then acted as a buffer against stress. Additionally, as discussed earlier, are documented cases of child neglect which show unequivocally that if raised without simple social interaction and touch, a child will not develop normal language and social skills. Work on social rejection shows it to be a root cause of a myriad of health problems. Human work by Eisenberger et al. (2003) showed that the same regions of the brain (ventral PFC) subserving actual physical pain are the same regions activated when humans are targeted by social rejection. Thus, a sense of the self as “good” and “included” is critical to mental and physical health and well-being. Because perceiving the self to be positive is adaptively critical, it seems that on average, people should be genetically predisposed to hold a sense of themselves as good. Indeed, current research suggests that high self-esteem, measured with implicit methods, is universal (Yamaguchi, et al., (2007). Although research on cross-cultural differences in cognition has shown that culture and language shape cognition, the adaptive utility of positive self-regard appears to transcend cultural influence. It should be noted, however, that the panculturality of positive self regard is only detected with implicit, but not explicit measures. On Social Cognition 18 explicit measures, members of Asian cultures (e.g., the Japanese), for example, do not report high levels of self-esteem. Research indicates that such cultures value self-effacing behavior and interconnectedness. Thus, singling out the “self as good” is to go against a cultural value. However, on implicit measures, these same individuals show high levels of implicit self-esteem. This dissociation exemplifies the way in which the same person’s biological needs and cultural influences can lead to two opposing truths. The dissociation between explicit and implicit reports of self-esteem is not restricted to notions of the self. In fact, consensus among students of social cognition is now that thinking about others comes in two forms: explicit, or controlled processing, and implicit or automatic processing. The very idea that we efficiently, effortlessly, and automatically process social phenomena makes total evolutionary sense and is entirely consistent with the preceding section on the uniqueness of social cognitive processes. At the same time that the field of social cognition was born 30 years ago, the research area of implicit social cognition was also born but was not so named until Greenwald and Banaji’s (1995) treatise on the topic. Implicit Social Cognition Basic Architecture of Mind in Social Information Processing When things are fundamental, they happen automatically and effortlessly. Such is the case with the automatic thinking and feeling about others. Although discussed at length in this volume, we wanted here to re-introduce the ideas of cognitive connectionist models of information processing as they relate specifically to social information processing. Conceptually, you can think of every idea, belief, concept, or category you can think of as a single unit represented by a dot. Lines drawn to connect dots represent semantic, experiential, and conceptual similarity such that more closely related dots are linked by thicker Social Cognition 19 lines: the stronger the association between dots, the thicker the line. Collections of strongly linked cognitive concepts and beliefs people have about the world are called schemas. A schema organizes related information in a framework that allows the person to use that information efficiently for thinking and feeling about and navigating through the social (and non-social) world. In essence, a schema is a particular lens through which you see some aspect of the world. Many types of cognitive representations fall under the general category of schemas—many of these will be discussed in some detail. The list includes general views about the world, stereotypes, contextual information about visual scenes and memories, social roles and behavioral scripts. The earliest work on schemas was conducted by Bartlett (1932) who showed individuals' schemas influenced judgment and memory in a schema-consistent manner. Sandra Bem was one of the first social psychologists to pull the notion of schemas from cognitive psychology into social processes. In her work, Bem discussed schemas at some length—one such finding that really adapted schema research to social phenomena was her gender schema theory (1981). In this theory, individuals hold varying depth of schemas about how important gender is as a cognitive heuristic. Seeing the world through a lens of gender will drive thoughts, feelings and behaviors in a gender-centric manner. For example, when a gender schematic person meets a new person, gender is the most salient feature of that novel person and drives much of the attribution and behavior associated with that meeting. Other work in developmental psychology also helped to shape the folding of schema constructs into social psychology. For example, work by Carol Dweck showed that children adopt a series of schemas (or implicit theories) to understand the world (Dweck, Hong, & Chiu, 1993). All of this work suggests that human thinking and feeling is guided by less conscious forces in addition to conscious ones. Awareness and the Unconscious Social Cognition 20 The most innovative effects to emerge from the early study of social cognition were the effects of the unconscious mind. Tools borrowed from cognitive psychology allowed social psychologists insight into the mind that was previously unattainable. Likewise, social cognition integrated theory and method from social and cognitive psychology and social neuroscience integrated methods from social and neuro psychology. Both of these new, integrative fields allowed renewed and empirically derived insights into the unconscious mind. But this neoFreudian empirical inquiry, to a great extent, began with a seminal paper by Nisbett & Wilson (1977). This paper was among the first compelling and conspicuous demonstrations that mental processes are not always accessible to conscious introspection. Many effects and processes occur outside of conscious introspection and we will discuss some of highlights of this social cognition research. How Does This Basic, Automatic, System Adaptively Learn? To engage in these automatic processes, the system must learn to do so within the constraints of an organism’s environment and social culture. There are at least three fundamental principles in social cognition research that can be thought of as some of the more important features of the socialized mind’s basic architecture: mere exposure, automatic evaluation, and illusory correlation. Below, we review each of these “learning features” in some detail. This review is not meant to be exhaustive, but a means of highlighting some of the most critical, interesting, and perhaps irrational ways in which the mind learns and operates. Mere exposure This is a finding that frequency of exposure increases liking (Zajonc, 1968). Bornstein's (1989) meta-analytic review, showed mere exposure effects are strongest when conditions reduce subjects' memory for the effect-producing exposures. Increased perceptual fluency caused by Social Cognition 21 multiple exposures is (mis)attributed to liking. One of the first demonstrations of how information not consciously accessible can influence conscious phenomena was the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968). The mere exposure effect describes how repeated exposure to a novel stimulus increases liking for that stimulus. For example, the more often a novel person is seen, the more attractive that person appears to become. The mechanism by which the mere exposure effect occurs is still uncertain; however, most research points to the possibility that exposure leads to ease of cognitive processing which then leads to preference. And in preference, comes a host of other positive associates. Automatic Evaluation Findings suggest that without intention, awareness, effort, or control, we evaluate the goodness or badness of an object immediately after perceiving it. Evidence can be harvested from research on evaluative priming (e.g., Fazio, 1986), implicit associations (e.g., Greenwald & Banaji, 1995) and by research on amygdala activation (e.g., Cunningham, et al., 2003). Illusory correlation Illusory correlation is an effect whereby relations are perceived even when no relation actually exists. One of the first bodies of research to bring this effect to the study of social targets was done by David Hamilton and Robert Gifford (1976). Hamilton and Gifford showed that the bias can be caused by two co-occurring events that appear to be unique or low in frequency. Because of relative low frequency, the brain finds them to be salient. As such, they stand out and their co-occurrence is more readily coded by the brain. These critical features describe how the mind’s basic architecture morphs to accommodate the demands of a person’s environment and culture. This idea will be brought more fully to fruition in the section on elasticity and plasticity. But before we turn to these issues, Social Cognition 22 let us briefly describe some of the byproducts of the mind’s basic architecture and its shaping by culture and environment. Byproducts of the Mind’s Architecture Stereotypes. Cognitive representations can be beliefs, ideas, memories, or expectations. In practice, stereotypes are systematically held cognitive representations about a person based solely upon his or her membership in a particular group (e.g., age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religious belief, physical appearance, profession, social class, physical size, handicaps, etc.). Beyond broad categorical stereotypes, even more fine-grained stereotypes exist within major social groups (e.g., within blacks, there are African Americans, Haitians, light-skinned, thugs, etc.). Research suggests that stereotypes, like minimal group phenomena, are difficult to avoid. Research and theory suggest that stereotypes are difficult to curtail because holding quickly accessible and simple representations of the objects in the world is an efficient use of cognitive resources. However, the information held in the mind can sometimes be flawed as in the case of illusory correlation (see page x, this chapter). Another example is how we notice, store, and remember best the most salient features of our social worlds. For example, information that is most strange, different, pleasing or detestable about someone, or that which confirms what we already (seem to) know is best retained and remembered and is more likely to be used in social judgment and decision. Feeding stereotype is preference toward certain social groups over others. These kinds of social group attitudes have a long history in social cognition and social neuroscience. Attitude and Social Group Bias. Thurstone’s landmark article in 1928 argued that “attitudes can be measured.” This paper sparked the beginning of attitude measurement notably lauded by Allport (1954) as social psychology’s “most central and indispensable topic.” Social Cognition 23 Attitudes were then, and are now, defined as a personal evaluation of any real or imagined object. For nearly 75 years, psychology relied upon people’s ability to indicate attitudes on some sort of self-report scale. Meanwhile, cognitive psychology was beginning to understand a new (at the time) aspect of the memory system, implicit memory (e.g., Neely, 1977). Research on implicit memory suggested that people can form memories and associations about input that they have no conscious recollection of, and/or that was not consciously perceptible upon presentation. In the 1980s and 1990s, methodological advances made it possible to measure these implicit memories by measuring concept accessibility with projective, lexical decision, or other unobtrusive measurements (e.g., Jacoby, 1994; Roediger, 1990; Schacter, 1987). Devine (1989) was one of the first to apply the methods of implicit memory research to social psychological problems such as stereotyping and prejudice. It was found that outside of conscious awareness, people were holding associations between negative attributes and certain social groups—associations that are now referred to as unconscious, or implicit, attitudes. Implicit attitudes are defined as the semantic association between evaluative attributes (e.g., “good,” “beautiful,” “bad,” or “ugly”) and attitude objects that can exist outside of conscious awareness and/or conscious control (Banaji, 2001; Greenwald et al., 2002). Implicit attitudes are thought to be somewhat fixed, like a personality trait (Bargh, 1997; Devine, 1989; Dovidio & Fazio, 1992), but temporarily malleable due to changes in one’s social and/or cognitive landscape (Blair, 2002; see section on elasticity and plasticity on page x of this chapter). However malleable implicit attitudes might be, such attitudes do predict individual differences in attitude-relevant behavior (Poehlman, Uhlmann, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2007). Beginning with Devine (1989), social psychology began to explore the role that unconscious attitudes played alongside explicit attitudes (i.e., Thurstone’s original conception of Social Cognition 24 attitudes as measured by self-reported evaluations of attitude-objects). Following Devine’s demonstration of the dissociation between explicit and implicit attitudes, Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, and Williams (1995) demonstrated that individual differences in implicit attitudes could be used to predict meaningful interpersonal variables. This same year, Greenwald and Banaji (1995) published a paper outlining the conceptual framework for what would later become the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003). A fairly recent review (Fazio & Olson, 2003) detailed the distinction between explicit, or controlled, and implicit, or automatic attitudes. Explicit, or controlled, attitudes are the attitudes first measured by Thurstone. Explicit attitudes are, by definition, not only accessible to a person in consciousness, but a person is willing to explicitly endorse such attitudes. To measure explicit attitudes, responses are made on a Likert-type scale, feeling thermometer, or other self-reported personal endorsement. Implicit, or automatic attitudes, are rooted in drawing out (with some methodology—typically via one of a class of reaction time tasks which will be discussed extensively later) the common meaning between two concepts in one’s semantic memory. This association, if measured under appropriate conditions, is very difficult (if not impossible) to control, and most agree that it is at least possible for the actor to be unaware that s/he holds such associative information. Race-bias is defined here as majority group members’ negative attitudes toward minority group members based on group membership. Findings that nearly half of Black Americans (47%) feel that they were treated unfairly in at least one of five common situations (e.g., shopping at the store) in the past month because they were Black (www.gallop.com) indicates clearly that racebias is alive, well, and present in the most common of life’s everyday activities. In addition, targets of race-bias are more likely to be arrested, and convicted and incarcerated once arrested Social Cognition 25 (Blumstein & Beck, 1999), are less likely to receive aggressive treatments from health-care professionals (Schulman, Berlin, Harless, Kerner, Sistrunk, Gersh, Dube, Taleghani, Burke, Williams, Eisenberg, & Escarce, 1999), and Black Americans with more “Afrocentric” facial features receive harsher punishments than White Americans (Blair, Judd, & Chapleau, 2004). Green, et al., (2007) found that physicians’ bias against blacks predicted treating blacks less than whites for acute myocardial infarction. Indeed, even in the most important values of American life—freedom and health, race-bias appears to be alive and well. The implicit, or automatic system is deeply efficient. Some of the principles upon which it rests make evolutionary adaptive sense. Some may at one time have made sense but are now rendered inappropriate by modern society which has different collective needs for adaptive and harmonious survival. And sometimes, because of its efficiency and automaticity, the system can be broadly irrational. Errors and Biases in Social Cognition Despite the best intentions, the most rational of goals, a person cannot easily override the unfolding of unconscious, or implicit, processes. Because the motivators of implicit thought, feeling, and behavior lie below the reaches of introspective access, sometimes such cognitions are rendered irrational in conception and/or execution. In this next section, we list a few of the most intriguing cognitive errors and biases that operate within the rules of the efficient mind, but are nonetheless irrational. Because of the mind’s architecture and rules, errors arise that are rational in the sense that they are following the rules of a well-defined system subserved by piping laid over millions of evolutionary years. However rational the intent, the errors are at minimum, extremely interesting and at worst, deeply socially disavowed. Because each finding Social Cognition 26 deserves clear and thorough treatment, we have organized the next section by listing each error of rationality and its major finding. Fundamental attribution error. A centerpiece of this broad area of attribution work (and arguably a founding pillar of social cognition) is that people often attribute a social agent’s behavior to his or her dispositions instead of the situations or contexts in which the agent is behaving. This work grew out of early experiments conducted by Jones and Harris (1967) and the general effect has come to be known as the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE; Ross, 1977) or the correspondence bias (Gilbert & Malone, 1995). Later theorizing and research on how the human mind spends cognitive energy to perceive and process social agents found that humans can be considered cognitive misers — avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of cognitive effort. Research applying the cognitive miser principle to the FAE found that it does appear to take more cognitive energy to consider both the person’s behavior and the situational context in which it exists than to consider the person and his or her behavior alone. To this aim, researchers found that taxing available cognitive resources increased the likelihood of the FAE/correspondence bias (Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988). Confirmation bias. With these expectations we have some cases in which information can either be confirmed or disconfirmed. Confirmation bias is a tendency to seek out information to confirm a pre-existing schema, belief, implicit theory, or expectation. Whether a confirmation bias produces a cognitive error is driven by the veracity of the pre-existing expectation. Among the earliest investigators of this phenomenon, Wason (1960) showed that people will actively seek out information to confirm their hypothesis and weight it more heavily—discounting information that is inconsistent with their hypothesis. Emerging findings from neuroscience (Westen, Kilts, Blagov, Harenski, & Hamann, 2006) has shown particular brain regions to Social Cognition 27 subserve confirmation bias. Specifically, area associated with reasoning (orbitofrontal cortex), conflict monitoring and resolution (anterior cingulate cortex) and making judgment about moral transgression (posterior cingulate cortex). These findings are extremely interesting—especial the role of the anterior cingulated cortex as it is most frequently implicated conflict resolution. What this implies is that on some, perhaps unconscious level, people know there is a conflict to be resolved. Of course, any time information is compared a potential conflict must be resolved. However, it is extremely interesting to imagine that some part of the human system is aware that the person is stretching to match a pre-existing hypothesis to the available data. Halo effect. Thorndike (1920) coined the term “halo effect” after observing that positive trait ratings were more correlated with each other than what should be expected if experience was the only determining factor. Subsequently, the halo effect came to describe the phenomenon by which judgment of a novel attribute is influenced by already known but irrelevant information. For example, attractive people are judged as kinder, more interesting, more sociable, and happier (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972). More recently, Down & Lyons (1991) showed defendant attractiveness to predict smaller fines and lower bail levels in real-world cases. This is the phenomenon by which a stimulus seen as positive in one regard will benefit by all kinds of positive attributions made to it. The idea here is that positive concepts, ideas, and schemas are all closely linked in the perceiver. If a perceiver encounters a stimulus deemed “good” in one regard, other positive traits and qualities will automatically be attributed to the stimulus. False consensus effect. This effect, first demonstrated by Lee Ross and colleagues (Ross Greene, & House, 1977), shows the tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others agree with their thoughts and feelings. This kind of bias is considered to be an “egocentric bias” a general class of biases which are at the core of many social cognitive processes. Recall Social Cognition 28 the previous discussion of Jason Mitchell’s work. Mitchell and his colleagues (2004; 2005; 2006) find that people will attribute their own traits to others—which is an example of egocentric bias. The region of the brain in Mitchell’s work engaged when making these attributions is the medial PFC. This may imply that the more activity in this region, the more likely people will engage in egocentric processing for a given social task. Endowment effect. The endowment effect is the findings that people value things more if it is their property (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990). Such objects are valued more than similar objects that are not owned. Experiments showed that valuation of objects such as mugs, pens, and chocolate bars increased sharply as soon as one is given the object. Misattribution. Some of the most interesting bias effects have emerged from research on misattribution. In this work, attitude and/or feeling activated by an object, situation, or internal state can be (mis)attributed to another. For example, Schwarz and Clore (1983) showed judgments of life-quality for subjects interviewed over the telephone were better when subject was in a sunny versus rainy region of the country. Schwarz, Strack, and Mai (1991) showed that subjects’ responses to marital satisfaction influenced life-quality judgments when marriage question came first and vice-versa. Calling attention to the source (weather) eliminates the effect (rationality). Each of these effects demonstrates ways in which the basic principles of the automatic, or implicit, mind can lead to irrational outcome. This may seem inconsistent with a major thrust of this chapter—that the social mind, which needs to belong, has evolved to efficiently process self and other for purposes of successful adaptation and survival. However, as soon as higher-order mental processes, subserved by cortical structures and referred to as explicit or controlled, are considered, it should become clear how rational errors can be caught and corrected given Social Cognition 29 sufficient effort and/or attention. Further, the basic architecture of the mind is not without tremendous flexibility—able to ride and control the tides of everyday social life. In the next section we will discuss the elasticity and plasticity of the human social mind. Elasticity and Plasticity The social judgments and decisions we make about others are pushed and pulled by forces of which we may sometimes not be aware and over which we may have little or no control. In each section below, we describe important results bearing on issues of complexity and boundary conditions to social cognition. Woven throughout each description, is discussion about how sometimes, interestingly, these phenomena can be dissociated from consciousness and/or intended goals. Since approximately 2002, researchers have considered the seemingly rigid and automatic nature of the mind to be more or less malleable—both in terms of temporary (elasticity) and long term (plasticity) change. Elasticity The bulk of the research conducted on the malleability of implicit social cognition has shown evidence for short-term change, or elasticity. In the past few years more than 40 studies have amassed which demonstrate that implicit attitudes and beliefs are flexible in the face of motivational, strategic, and situational forces. Blair (2002) was among the first to clearly argue the notion that automatic mind processes such as stereotypes and attitudes are malleable or elastic. The papers reviewed by Blair and additional publications since then show that automatic processes can be generally influenced by a person’s conscious or unconscious motives and goals, and different aspects of the environment or situational context. For example, research suggests that personal motivations, such as the motivation to not appear prejudiced, can change implicit attitude and/or their behavioral manifestations (e.g., Dasgupta & Rivera, 2006; Lowery, Hardin, Social Cognition 30 & Sinclair, 2001). Additionally, implicit attitudes can change after practice or training (e.g., Blair, Ma, & Lenton, 2001; Ito, Chiao, Devine, Lorig, & Cacioppo, 2006; Kawakami, Dovidio, Moll, Hermsen, & Russin, 2000). And other studies show that implicit attitudes and beliefs can be changed by shifting the social context (e.g., Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1995; Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001). Blair (2002) specifically concluded that five features of the self or social environment can effect change in implicit attitude or belief. These features are: (1) the self’s social motives, (2) conscious and specific strategies to overcome automatic processes, (3) attentional focus, (4) features of the situational context, and (5) characteristics of a social target. Shifts in these influences can change an implicit or automatic thought and its behavioral sequelae. Elastic changes are temporary; however, plastic changes can be permanent. But evidence suggests that plastic changes, although likely accompanied by permanent anatomical and/or neural network changes, are likely to be governed by the same rules as elastic changes. Plasticity Longer-term changes in implicit attitudes and beliefs are possible. Although only a handful of studies have examined and shown such changes, there is a great deal of evidence from neuroscience which suggests that longer-term changes are possible. One example of such a study was conducted by Dasgupta and Asgari (2004) in which they found that when women at an exclusively female college were exposed to female professors, they were less likely to express automatic stereotypic beliefs about women. Although only a small handful of studies have shown longer-term changes in implicit processes, educational research focuses on meaningful learning and the promotion of knowledge transfer between people and within a person across situations. Greeno (2006) discussed a situated approach to learning emphasizing the role of situational Social Cognition 31 context on changes in complex cognitive system. He reviews research which, like Blair (2002) suggests that factors such as motivation, goals, and situational context can effect changes in complex cognitive systems. However, long-term changes such as those observed in learning are brought about by structural changes in the brain. Thus, in order to understand how permanent social cognitive change might be effected, it is important to understand basic neuronal plasticity. Neuronal plasticity is the capability of synapses to modify their function in a usually adaptive response to environmental stimuli (Cotman & Nieto-Sampedro, 1984), including innocuous (such as normal everyday experiences) and noxious stimuli (such as damage to the brain). An example of an adaptive synaptic change would be that the brain would change to learn that the category “dog” is associated with the fluffy, large, panting entity that makes sounds such as “ruff.” You are now able to recognize that the label “dog” is associated with the category. You are then able to communicate about the category, learn new things about it, and behave toward it. An example of a maladaptive change in synaptic activity would be one that associates a loud crash with the dog so that where you were once unafraid of the kind household pet, you are now afraid of it because the brain has associated it with the fear response elicited by the crash that the presence of the dog was paired with. You are now afraid of the dog, and you may generalize this fear to dogs in general, which may prevent you from being able to interact with dogs or visit places where dogs are kept. In both the adaptive and maladaptive example of neuronal plasticity, the brain has changed in its response to some stimulus. Such stimuli can come from within or from outside the person. . Scientist used to think that only young brains were capable of synaptic change and that brains were fixed after the first few years of life. We now believe, however, that neuronal Social Cognition 32 plasticity is maximal during development and present in certain parts of the brain throughout life (Cotman & Nieto-Sampedro, 1984). Plasticity can happen in both the peripheral and central nervous system in both subcortical and cortical brain structures. Current research on neuronal plasticity has identified four broad classes of neuroplasticity that can be researched in mammals, namely in humans (see e.g., Grafman, 2000; Thompson, 2000): compensatory masquerade, cross-modal reassignment, homologous area adaptation, and map expansion. Compensatory masquerade is a process typically associated with humans that describes the novel use of an established cognitive process to perform a task that is usually dependent on a different cognitive process that is now impaired. To illustrate, imagine an individual suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, where that individual has lost short-term memory capacity and cannot, therefore, depend on her or his memory to recall the grocery list. Imagine that the individual makes out the list and attaches it to the calendar on the day that the shopping is to take place (which has been every first Tuesday of the month for many years, and is therefore in the on-term memory). The individual has then, used a different but established process to compensate for the short-term memory process on which the task used to be dependent but on which it can no longer depend. Cross-modal reassignment is a process associated with the introduction of new sensory information into a brain region that has been deprived of the sensory information normally associated with it. For example, imagine a blind person whose visual system receives little or no input. In cross-modal reassignment, the brain region typically assigned to receive visual input would receive other types of input, perhaps in an effort to keep the cells alive, or alternatively because the inhibitory processes usually engaged in sighted individuals is not engaged in order to stave off competing brain systems. Social Cognition 33 Homologous area adaptation is typically used to describe the process by which damage to a particular brain region and its cognitive operation(s) is compensated for by shifting those dependent cognitive operation(s) to another brain area or the homologous area on the opposite hemisphere. It is thought that neighboring and homologous cortical regions have both primary and secondary assignments, and when a particular brain region has been damaged and its dependent cognitive process has been assigned to be a secondary assignment to another region, the primary process can inhibit the secondary process, which usually yields an imperfect compensation for the damage. To illustrate, imagine a young individual who suffers a severe right parietal lobe brain injury. The left parietal lobe may assume some of the processes originally dependent on the right parietal lobe, but new information that would have been assigned to the left parietal lobe will not be learned very well because the region on which it has been genetically programmed to depend has been assigned to a different set of cognitive processes. That individual may have perfectly normal spatial processing, but when s/he begins to learn arithmetic, they may not be able to because the region on which arithmetic reasoning depends has been primarily assigned to other processes (example adapted from Grafman, 2000). Map expansion is the process of neuroplasticity that refers to the flexibility of the (typically normally functioning) brain to acquire new information, and is the type of neuroplasticity that is central to the focus of the current chapter. Map expansion is a term used to describe current research suggesting that the size of cortical maps assigned to specific cognitive processes increase in size with practice of that social cognitive process or with frequent exposure to a stimulus. There is also evidence to suggest that some cortical maps rapidly enlarge in individuals who are trained to be or are naturally adept at a skill that is used on a routine basis Social Cognition 34 (Rosenzweig & Bennett, 1996). The process of map expansion is the class of neuroplasticity under which the synaptic changes associated with learning are classified. In an attempt to describe what might be happening in the brain during learning, Hebb (1949) proposed that learning may involve changes in neural functioning effected by two cells that are active at the same time. A useful description was offered by (LeDoux, 1996). Imagine three cells organized in the shape of a triangle with each cell representing an angle of the triangle where the base of the triangle is at the bottom and the tip is pointing upward. The lower left corner of the triangle is cell “A” and cell “B” is the right lower corner of the triangle, both “A” and “B” are connected through each’s synapse to cell “C” which is the third cell at the top tip of the triangle. Hebb hypothesized that if cell “B” had the ability to make cell “C” fire but “A” did not, and if both cells “A” and “B” fired at the same time making cell “C” fire, that the “B-C” connection would be further strengthened as would the “A-C” connection, and that cell “A” would be enough to fire cell “C” alone (where it was not able to ellicit a response from “C” before) because it had fired in unison with cell “B”, which was capable of eliciting a response from cell “C.” Hebb’s hypothesis is best brought to life by an example of a conditioned fear response. Hebb’s hypothesis remains as the first accurate advance in understanding how the brain changes in response to environmental stimuli, and it wasn’t until 30 years later when researchers such as Bliss and Lomo (1973) found evidence to suggest that Hebb’s postulate was, in fact, correct. Bliss and Lomo found that the communication between neurons across synapses (in rabbits) is strengthened by repeated electrical stimulation, a phenomenon that was thereafter named long term potentiation describing the strengthening of a synapse (Johnston, 1997), and Social Cognition 35 associative long term potentiation is used to describe the association of a new connection to an already existing synapse like the one illustrated in the discussion of Hebb’s postulate. Hebb’s postulate is embraced by social cognition as the best way to understand plastic changes in the human social mind. But what is unique to the study of plasticity in human social cognition is the exact forces which effect changes that are either temporally constrained (elasticity) or unconstrained (plasticity). Person-Initiated Elasticity and Plasticity Elasticity and plasticity can be facilitated by organic forces, as well. Prefrontal cortex is a relatively massive area of the brain which assimilates and integrates signal from many subcortical areas which subserve basic process like emotional feelings such as the amygdala. Although different parts of the brain are primarily engaged in executing different types of tasks—cognitive, emotional, etc., prefrontal cortex is the structure recruited to regulate the effort of these other areas. For example, the amygdala associated with threat response may become active when a person sees a snake; however, it is prefrontal cortex’ job to down-regulate the amygdala telling it that the snake is only a picture on the computer screen. However, when PFC is spending time and effort down-regulating the amygdala, it has less “muscle” to spend regulating other subcortical and cortical regions. Some of the most compelling work done in this area has been by Kevin Ochsner and colleagues (e.g., Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Ochsner, Ray, Cooper, Robertson, Chopra, Gabrieli, & Gross, 2004). In this work, an area of the PFC, the orbitofrontal cortex, is in charge of many general executive functions such as making decisions. If the PFC is generally taxed by down-regulating the amygdala, its ability to engage in complex cognitive tasks will be diminished. For evidence of this effect in response to social groups automatically eliciting negative affect, see work by Cunningham, Johnson, Raye, Social Cognition 36 Gatenby, Gore, and Banaji (2004). The process of deliberately trying to stop thinking about certain thoughts is referred to as thought suppression (Wegner, 1988). The very act of suppressing a though, ironically makes that thought more accessible. Wegner’s (1994) Ironic Process Theory accounts for this effect. Recent neuroimaging work suggest the dorsolateral PFC may subserve thought suppression, whereas the bilateral anterior cingulated cortex may be implicated during occurrences of unwanted thoughts. Additionally, work by Baumeister and colleagues (e.g., Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998) showed that depletion of cognitive or “ego” resources as they described them, tax the rest of the system. In this work, thinking, feeling, and motivational resources are one in the same “muscle,” and taxing any one part of the system will tax the whole system. Other work also finds evidence for this. For example, if one is trying to suppress emotional facial expressions, they will perform more poorly on cognitive tasks such as memory recall (Richards & Gross, 1999). Social neuroscience has only just begun to examine resource depletion and such findings may illuminate how all of these historically separate systems appear experimentally to be one in the same. Concluding Comments The boundaries to our knowledge about “thinking people thinking about other thinking people” are expanding rapidly and there remain many questions. What is the full breadth of its nature? What are all of its functions? Which areas of the mind and brain are used in which processes? What does elasticity and plasticity functionally look like in the brain? What are all of the impacts on decision making? What are its implications for health in general? These are but a few that we seek to answer. In finding these answers, will we discover ourselves, how we relate to the world and to others, and what makes us unique, both as a species and as individuals. Social Cognition 37 There are a few truisms we can employ. Humans are intensely social animals, people need people. Humans are organized around this concept in many ways, both psychologically and physiologically. The structure of our society is clearly oriented toward groups. How we think about our group orientation echoes our own self-perception. Self-definition is a basic human need. To fulfill this need and to make sense of and organize the world around us, we have developed an ability to intuit and decipher others. Such social perceptions create the endless range of belief, feeling, and regulation. The fundamental aspects of social cognition are, at once, vast, critical, and special. Social cognitive processes are both conscious and unconscious. We have both explicit and implicit thoughts and feelings. The last two decades of research into social cognition has underscored that the unconscious mind is a powerful, sometimes uncontrollable force in our social cognitive process. Unchecked, this automaticity prompts us to make errors in judgment, misattributions, and can render us socially ineffective and maladaptive. Yet, we do evidence methods of control and balance to these inherent behaviors. The processes of the mind and the areas of the brain that serve to offset this automaticity are complex, interrelated, intriguing, and again, the work of social cognition remains unbounded and clearly must encompass a range of disciplines and methodological tools. As the field progresses and the range of work done expands, it will doubtless prove fruitful not only in and of itself, but for a host of other scientific areas of inquiry. Social Cognition 38 References Adolphs, R. (2001). The neurobiology of social cognition. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 11, 231–239. Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. New York: Doubleday. Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 41, 258 – 290. Banaji, M. R. (2001). Ordinary prejudice. Psychological Science Agenda, American Psychological Association, 14, 8-11. Banaji, M. R., Baron, A., Dunham, Y., & Olson, K. (in press). Some experiments on the development of intergroup social cognition. 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