How do people think about the world? How do individuals make sense of their complex social environment? What are the underlying mechanisms that determine our understanding of the social world? Social cognition - the study of the specific cognitive processes that are involved when we think about the social world - attempts to answer these questions. Social cognition is an increasingly important and influential area of social psychology, impacting on areas such as attitude change and person perception. This introductory textbook provides the student with comprehensive coverage of the core topics in the field: how social information is encoded, stored and retrieved from memory; how social knowledge is structured and represented; and what processes are involved when individuals form judgements and make decisions. The overall aim is to highlight the main concepts and how they interrelate, providing the student with an insight into the whole social cognition framework. With this in mind, the first two chapters provide an overview of the sequence of information processing and outline general principles. Subsequent chapters build on these foundations by providing more in-depth discussion of memory, judgemental heuristics, the use of information, hypothesis-testing in social interaction and the interplay of affect and cognition. Social Cognition will be essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, communication studies, and sociology.

Use the following for Social Work catalogs: Social Cognition and Individual Change provides a much needed link among several perspectives in social work practice (such as the ecological or generalist model) and the myriad of atheoretical "techniques" that social work practitioners must choose from. This new social work practice book makes more concrete and practical the basic premises of "person-environment interaction" and ′starting where the client is." It details the processes through which people perceive and interpret the social world, how problems arise, and how understanding these processes can significantly sharpen our assessments, intervention planning, goal selection, and evaluation. It draws upon the best up-to-date work in cognitive and emotional functioning, self-concept formation and change, and coping with stress. This book goes beyond introductory practice texts in describing how social work theory can guide practice. Special topics include clinical reasoning, the structure of memory, and social-cognitive explanations for psychodynamic phenomenon. Social Cognition and Individual Change should be included in courses for advanced practice and social work practice theory. Use this ad copy for psych: In recent years, there have been some major developments in the area of person-environment interaction--specifically the study of social cognition. Although knowledge of this literature is critical for the helping professional, social cognition in clients has been among the more difficult to adequately assess and use for intervention. Until now. Clear and succinct, Social Cognition and Individual Change offers a comprehensive introduction to a "cognitive-ecological" approach to counseling and clinical practice. To provide a solid conceptual grounding for the reader, the theoretical underpinnings of the cognitive-ecological model are described in detail, including its key components, strengths, and limitations. The model is then applied to relevant stages of practice such as assessment, goal setting, intervention planning, and evaluation. In addition, the authors provide numerous examples to illustrate how practitioners can use the model to enhance their work. Among the other topics covered are social perception and the practitioner, and feedback and follow-through. Social Cognition and Individual Change is perfectly suitable for courses on human behavior in the social environment and courses on practice methods. Human service practitioners, who would like an updated resource to fill a gap in their social psychological training, will also appreciate this volume. "The structure of this book allows one to use it for training students as well as a resource for professional practitioners. The material presented in each chapter is reinforced by the material in the succeeding chapter. The authors systematically develop the theoretical underpinnings and practice behaviors requisite for empowering clients and workers." --Families in Society Use this for social work catalog: "In this era of the cognitive revolution, books that address the use of cognitive techniques to facilitate personal change are abundant. None, however, match the conceptual depth and clarity offered by Brower and Nurius. . . . By using clear conceptual descriptions, vivid and relevant examples, step-by-step procedural guidelines, chapter introductions, and capsule summaries, Brower and Nurius deftly follow their own prescriptions about how to capture attention, prime associations, and facilitate recall." --from the foreword by Sharon B. Berlin, The University of Chicago Use this quote for Psych crowd: "Brower and Nurius have put together a valuable and practical blend of theory and research from areas of social cognition, self psychology, and counseling practice. I recommend it highly." --Michael J. Mahoney, University of North Texas

Social problems in many domains, including health, education, social relationships, and the workplace, have their origins in human behavior. The documented links between behavior and social problems have compelled governments and organizations to prioritize and mobilize efforts to develop effective, evidence-based means to promote adaptive behavior change. In recognition of this impetus, The Handbook of Behavior Change provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory, research, and practice on behavior change. It summarizes current evidence-based approaches to behavior change in chapters authored by leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, behavioral science, economics, philosophy, and implementation science. It is the go-to resource for researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers looking for current knowledge on behavior change and guidance on how to develop effective interventions to change behavior.

Over the past three decades mounting evidence has suggested that infants’ social perceptual and social cognitive abilities are considerably richer than was once thought. By the end of the second year of life, infants discriminate faces along various social dimensions, attend to and understand others’ goals and intentions, use the emotions of others to guide their learning and behavior, attribute dispositional characteristics to other agents, and make basic social evaluations. What has also become clear is that there is a great deal of variability in infants’ social perception and cognition. A critical, outstanding question concerns the nature and meaning of such variability. The proposed Research Topic welcomes papers addressing cutting-edge questions regarding variability and individual differences in early social perception and social cognition. The goal of these papers is to investigate overarching questions in this domain, which are necessary to move the field forward. Variability in early social perception and social cognition (among other domains) in infancy and early childhood is often attributed to noise, or overlooked in favor of focusing on age-related changes. Yet, recent work suggests that variability in social perceptual and social cognitive tasks reliably inter-relates, and predicts real-world social behaviors. For example, infants’ everyday experience with different face categories predicts individual differences in face processing, infants’ production of goal-directed actions predicts their simultaneous understanding of these actions, and variability in social attention during the second year of life is related to theory of mind during the preschool years. These findings suggest that variability in performance on social perception and social cognition tasks is not merely a nuisance variable, but, rather, may provide the key to addressing significant questions regarding the nature of infants’ social perception and social cognition, and the processes that underlie developmental change. Acknowledging and closely examining and investigating variability in early social perceptual and social cognitive abilities may represent a powerful approach for understanding development in (at least) two ways. First, variability can signal transitional points in the developmental onset of a given ability. Thus, such variability, and the extent to which variability relates to experience and/or other abilities, can be used to test hypotheses regarding mechanisms that underlie developmental changes. Second, variability can represent more enduring individual differences between infants. In this case, critical questions arise regarding the source of individual differences (that is, what factors shape the emergence of individual differences?) and whether such early individual differences contribute to the development of more advanced and sophisticated forms of social cognition and behavior. The goal of this Research Topic will be to encourage researchers to take variability in early social perception and cognition seriously. Papers that give variability center stage, and are aimed at addressing the value of variability for identifying developmental mechanisms, as well as investigating the existence, source, and antecedents of early individual differences in social perception and social cognition are welcomed. Taken together, the contributed papers will provide integral new information to the study of social perception and social cognition over the first three years of life.

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. The chapters also explore more nuanced topics in greater detail, showing how the research was conducted and how it can be used for further study. The authors range from academics working in renowned university departments to those from research institutions and practitioners in zoos. The volume encompasses a wide variety of species, ensuring the breadth of the field is explored.

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of social cognition, ranging from its history and core research areas to its relationships with other fields. The 43 chapters included are written by eminent researchers in the field of social cognition, and are designed to be understandable and informative to readers with a wide range of backgrounds.

Social Cognition brings together diverse and timely writings that highlight cutting-edge research and theories on the development of social cognition and social behavior across species and the life span. The volume is organized according to two central themes that address issues of continuity and change both at the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic level. First, it addresses to what extent social cognitive abilities and behaviors are shared across species, versus abilities and capacities that are uniquely human. Second, it covers to what extent social cognitive abilities and behaviors are continuous across periods of development within and across the life span, versus their change with age. This volume offers a fresh perspective on social cognition and behavior, and shows the value of bringing together different disciplines to illuminate our understanding of the origins, mechanisms, functions, and development of the many capacities that have evolved to facilitate and regulate a wide variety of behaviors fine-tuned to group living.

Despite widespread acknowledgment that both personal and situational factors influence behavior, researchers in the area of social influence have been slow to examine individual differences in their work. Indeed, social influence investigators often point to their findings to illustrate the power of situational variables relative to personal causes of behavior. However, as the articles in this volume demonstrate, social influence researchers can obtain a greater understanding of the phenomena they study by incorporating individual difference variables into their research.

Explores the cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of human social interactive abilities across the lifespan, in healthy and atypical development. Combines traditionally separate bodies of research into one coherent volume, following the trajectory of communication over the entire lifespan from infancy to old age. Crosses multiple disciplines, drawing together expertise from researchers in psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, linguistics, and philosophy. Brings together key methodologies and debates in a vibrant and fast-growing field. Written in an accessible style and suited to a wide range of readers, including academics and students of cognitive, developmental, and social psychology, related sciences and social sciences, as well as practitioners working in the fields of social care, mental health, and education