scholarly journals What's New in the Clinical Management of Disorders of Social Cognition?

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Skye McDonald

Social cognition refers to the ability to use social cues to infer the meaning and intentions behind the behaviour of others in order to respond in a socially adaptive manner. It is increasingly recognised that disorders of social cognition, including problems with emotion perception, theory of mind, conversational inference, morality judgements, decision making and social inhibition, characterise many developmental and psychiatric disorders and are highly relevant to many with acquired brain injuries or diseases, especially the frontotemporal dementias. This review provides an introduction and overview of the papers in this special edition on social cognition and places these in the context of other recent research. In doing so, several current issues in the clinical management of social cognition are delineated. Given that social cognition seems to be a sensitive predictor of psychosocial function, the assessment of social cognition is seen by many clinicians to be important although which profession is responsible is yet to be resolved. Issues in how social cognition are assessed are discussed, including the importance of context to social cognition, its interactive nature and the need to recognise influences such as family upbringing, gender and emotional state on social cognitive performance. There also needs to be development of tests that address all aspects of social cognition, including decision making and inhibition. Finally, this review discusses intervention research. Interventions are especially well developed in relation to schizophrenia, and less well developed in brain injury. These appear to be generally effective although treatments for emotional self-awareness are yet to be developed.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Arioli ◽  
Chiara Crespi ◽  
Nicola Canessa

Social cognition refers to a set of processes, ranging from perception to decision-making, underlying the ability to decode others’ intentions and behaviors to plan actions fitting with social and moral, besides individual and economic considerations. Its centrality in everyday life reflects the neural complexity of social processing and the ubiquity of social cognitive deficits in different pathological conditions. Social cognitive processes can be clustered in three domains associated with (a) perceptual processing of social information such as faces and emotional expressions (social perception), (b) grasping others’ cognitive or affective states (social understanding), and (c) planning behaviors taking into consideration others’, in addition to one’s own, goals (social decision-making). We review these domains from the lens of cognitive neuroscience, i.e., in terms of the brain areas mediating the role of such processes in the ability to make sense of others’ behavior and plan socially appropriate actions. The increasing evidence on the “social brain” obtained from healthy young individuals nowadays constitutes the baseline for detecting changes in social cognitive skills associated with physiological aging or pathological conditions. In the latter case, impairments in one or more of the abovementioned domains represent a prominent concern, or even a core facet, of neurological (e.g., acquired brain injury or neurodegenerative diseases), psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia), and developmental (e.g., autism) disorders. To pave the way for the other papers of this issue, addressing the social cognitive deficits associated with severe acquired brain injury, we will briefly discuss the available evidence on the status of social cognition in normal aging and its breakdown in neurodegenerative disorders. Although the assessment and treatment of such impairments is a relatively novel sector in neurorehabilitation, the evidence summarized here strongly suggests that the development of remediation procedures for social cognitive skills will represent a future field of translational research in clinical neuroscience.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 711-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta Voutilainen ◽  
Tiina Kouhia ◽  
David L. Roberts ◽  
Jorma Oksanen

Background: Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) is a psychosocial treatment designed to improve social functioning in schizophrenia by improving social cognition. Positive results have been reported from several studies, mainly from the USA, but more studies are needed to determine the feasibility of SCIT in different cultural contexts. Aims: The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the Finnish translation of SCIT in Finland. Method: This was an uncontrolled, within-group study. Thirty-three patients with psychotic disorders participated in SCIT groups and also received the standard services provided at their respective care facilities. We measured participant attendance, attrition and responses on feedback surveys. Participants also completed measures of emotion perception, Theory of Mind (ToM), attributional bias and metacognitive overconfidence both before and after SCIT. Results: The attendance rate was high, attrition was low, and the patients expressed satisfaction with SCIT. Preliminary efficacy analyses showed a statistically significant pre to posttest improvement in emotion perception and ToM, but not attributional bias or overconfidence. Conclusions: SCIT is feasible and well accepted and may remediate social cognitive dysfunction in people with psychotic disorders in Finland.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Auditi Pramanik

Successful decision making involves our ability to understand the intensions, emotions and beliefs of other people. An important feature of decision making in a social setting concern the interaction of areas and Social cognition is an integral part of social psychology, which deals with the psychological mechanisms that mediate the individual’s responses to the social environment. Notable to social cognitive theories are the ideas which are applied and extended to many concepts, theories, models and paradigms from cognitive psychology in social context. This approach leads to remarkable progress in understanding of social scenario, people’s decisions and also offers insights into social issues. It helps to understand reactions of people in social context. Decision making is just one of the many areas in which social cognition has an important role. Decision making is a complex cognitive skill. Social cognition attempts to explain the broad social aspects of human experience, such as how decision making are influenced by the presence of others as well as the social situations in which they find themselves. This article presents a fundamental idea of social cognitive perspective of decision making process and factors that influence our decisions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-21
Author(s):  
Andreas Hirschi

Exploring one’s occupational possibilities is one of the major developmental tasks in adolescent career development and a lack of exploration is considered especially troublesome. This longitudinal study explored antecedents of foreclosure in career decision-making, i.e. the tendency to prematurely commit to a career choice without prior throughout exploration of the available possibilities. Participants were 334 Swiss students in eighth grade. The results show that social-cognitive variables of generalized self-efficacy (GSE) , externality of control beliefs, and perceived barriers and vocational interest variables of interest profile differentiation, consistency, and elevation significantly predicted foreclosure compared to achievement or diffusion. Specifically, male gender, less GSE, and less elevation predicted foreclosure compared to achievement. Male gender, less perceived barriers, less differentiation, and less consistency predicted foreclosure compared to diffusion. The initial developmental status was the strongest single predictor of later status. Implications for counseling practice are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
A. Castelnovo ◽  
R. Ranieri ◽  
M. Marcatili ◽  
S. Scarone

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 577-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Frajo-Apor ◽  
Georg Kemmler ◽  
Silvia Pardeller ◽  
Markus Huber ◽  
Christian Macina ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectives:Social cognitive deficits have been discussed to be endophenotypes for schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses. The current study aimed to assess emotional intelligence (EI) in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients to investigate its potential role as endophenotype for schizophrenia.Methods:EI was measured in 56 schizophrenia patients, 57 unaffected siblings, and 127 healthy control subjects by using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). In addition, non-social cognition was assessed with the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS). Linear mixed models with compound symmetric correlation structure were used for of the three groups with respect to EI and non-social cognition.Results:Schizophrenia patients showed significantly lower overall EI and performed significantly worse in three out of four MSCEIT branches compared to unaffected siblings and control subjects, whereas the two latter groups had comparable EI levels. Similar performance patterns (patients<unaffected siblings=control subjects) were found with respect to non-social cognition. Solely in the “Tower of London” test, siblings achieved significantly lower task scores compared to control subjects.Conclusions:Based on our results, EI as measured with the MSCEIT does not seem to represent a marker of risk for schizophrenia. Further investigations should concentrate on other EI measures to reassess this finding. (JINS, 2017,23, 577–583)


2009 ◽  
pp. 123-141
Author(s):  
Dennis R. Combs ◽  
Dustin J: Chapman ◽  
Casey Reneau

- There has been an increased interest in research on paranoia and persecutory delusions. This is partly based on the idea that paranoia exists on a continuum ranging from sub-clinical to clinical levels. One area of interest is in social cognition as it may provide methods to understand how persons with paranoia perceive, interpret, and understand their social world. Previous research has showed that social cognition directly influences or mediates social functioning. Paranoia can be ideally approached from a social cognitive perspective, which makes understanding these processes even more important. For this review, we will focus on the current state of knowledge for paranoia as it pertains to the three primary domains of social cognition: 1) emotion/social perception, 2) theory of mind, and 3) attributional style. Deficits in emotion/social perception appear to be found across the paranoia continuum. In contrast, deficits in theory of mind and attributional style are typically found in persons with clinical levels of paranoia. Future studies should focus on understanding the processes that might underlie the deficits.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document