Epistemology of Decision by Mario Graziano

Author:Mario Graziano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

2.3 The Role of Social Cognition

In general, social cognition is the process that allows people to think about and give meaning to themselves, others and social situations (Fiske and Taylor 1991). In particular, it concerns the ways in which we form an impression (positive or negative) of the personality, role and identity of others. The notion of social cognition must therefore take into account a number of features of human cognition: (1) the recognition by the subject of an actor who works in an environment intentionally; (2) the consideration that the beliefs and representations of others are related to their actions; and (3) changes in the constitution of beliefs and representations about the goals of a subject. Therefore, the way we define other people affects our social interaction, but at the same time, the other is also influenced by social interaction, that is, we form the view that is both an effect and a cause of social interaction.

Usually, people think that social cognition primarily serves a practical purpose (Fiske 1992). According to studies of social cognition, people must balance their impressions of others with the requirements of appropriate social interaction as a result of the limitations of the cognitive system. As a result, people engaged in social interaction are usually “motivated tacticians”, who mostly use “quick and dirty” judgments to conserve cognitive capacity but can be trained to use strategies yielding thoughtful and detailed impressions (Fiske and Taylor 1991). An example of this comes from the issue of trust (distrust) versus social reputation. In social interactions, trust (distrust) of others plays a crucial role. People expect others to be competent, friendly, honest and trustworthy. When we need to make quick decisions, we use heuristics, stereotypes, habit patterns, and other gimmicks to evaluate others. Many experimental data show that one of the key assumptions in our social interactions is the so-called “positivity bias” (positive bias); that is, most people expect from others, ceteris paribus, a kind of benevolence. People emphasize the pleasant and avoid the unpleasant; they communicate good news more often than bad and are more likely to judge unpleasant events as pleasant (Rothbarth and Park 1986). Similarly, in a phenomenon known as “positive bias of the person” (person positivity bias), people are evaluated more favorably than corresponding abstract entities; that is, students evaluate individual teachers more favorably than the courses they taught, or individual politicians more favorably than their political party in general (Sears 1983). All of this, of course, is reflected in language; in fact, in most languages, positive terms outnumber negative terms (Zajonc 1998).

The assumption of positivity is clearly present in our expectations about other individuals and events. In social situations, positivity encourages interaction with our fellow humans and the environment.

Compared to trust, reputation seems to need more time to build. In fact, a person’s reputation (positive or negative) must have time to stabilize before it can become a form of capital for related actors. This stabilization reduces uncertainty in the expectations of those who attribute to

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