social cognition plays a critical role in our social interactions
The main focus of my paper will be social cognition. Social cognition is a critical psychology sub-topic that focuses on how people process, store and apply information about social situations or peers. Several psychologists have defined social cognition in different ways. However, amongst all these definitions, there are some common factors that many experts have collectively identified necessary. For instance, researchers agree that social cognition involves the study of mental processes that involves how we think and attend to other people in our social world. Also, it is common that social cognition involves processes that shape how we perceive other people and how we know the people around us. Social cognition is a broad subject that goes beyond social psychology. It may as well include an approach to studying any subject using a social cognitive perspective. It also utilizes prejudice, stereotypes, self-concept, decision making, discrimination and persuasion.
I chose the topic because social cognition plays a critical role in our social interactions. We all think about processes, social situations and our friends. The way we think about others or situations play a significant role in how we think, feel and interact with the world around us. Social cognition influences our social interaction significantly. In a typical day, we interact with many people. This interaction is an entire branch of psychology that seeks to inform us how we think, feel and behave in social situations. For example, when a person prepares for a blind date, he or she cares a lot about the possible impression signals they might send to the other person. Also, we get concerned with interpreting the signals the other person will display. In such a situation, social cognition helps us to form an impression of the other person as well as the meaning we read into the other person’s behaviour. This is just a single example from many that show how important social cognition is for our social interactions.