scholarly journals Social Cognition

Psychology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon B. Moskowitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Prior Learning ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
Processing Information ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Social cognition is concerned with the study of the thought processes, both implicit and explicit, through which humans attain understanding of self, others, and their environment. Its basic assumption is that the experience of the world is constructed by the perceiver, and that the mental representations one uses for assimilating and making sense of information develop over a lifetime of experience to provide a framework for organizing incoming information, creating expectations and predictions regarding future events, and (re) processing information stored in memory. Such cognition serves (1) as the foundation for social interaction, or in the service of producing appropriate action, and (2) to allow the individual to maintain a coherent understanding/narrative of the world despite an unending stream of stimuli, new experiences, and evidence that might contradict already existing beliefs. Social cognition’s research focus spans from higher-order cognition such as reasoning, ruminating, and deliberation among options to low-order processes such as perception, attention, categorization, memory (encoding, retrieval, reconsolidation), and spreading activation among concepts in networks of associated mental representations. Typical questions focus on how affect and motivation interact with the cognitive system in shaping the type of processing engaged in and the output of that processing, thus determining what we think and feel (and ultimately how we act). In this regard there is an emphasis on the data present in the external world (e.g., whether someone is displaying anger) as an influence on behavior, and on the inherent ability of the features embedded in stimuli to capture attention and trigger specific meaning (such as what combination of facial muscles aligned in a specific way convey anger to people from all cultures). However, perhaps more importantly there is an emphasis on the subjective nature of construing such data (whether we are prepared to perceive the person as displaying anger) and on how the bias to perception and judgment that is introduced from our affect, motives, emotions, moods, values, mind-sets, and prior learning impacts what we believe we see and how the current situation is interpreted. Thus, while what one thinks about a person and what goals one adopts when interacting with that person are influenced by how one categorizes that person (which is based on attention and memory retrieval), it is also true that attention, memory, and categorization are determined by goals, context, attitudes, values, etc. Recent research has introduced concerns with dissociating the implicit from the explicit components of social cognition, as well as understanding the neural basis for cognition relating to the social world, and how this may differ from non-social cognition.

Habitus and Field

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Leander
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
International Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Heuristic Devices

The terms habitus and field are useful heuristic devices for thinking about power relations in international studies. Habitus refers to a person’s taken-for-granted, unreflected—hence largely habitual—way of thinking and acting. The habitus is a “structuring structure” shaping understandings, attitudes, behavior, and the body. It is formed through the accumulated experience of people in different fields. Using fields to study the social world is to acknowledge that social life is highly differentiated. A field can be exceedingly varied in scope and scale. A family, a village, a market, an organization, or a profession may be conceptualized as a field provided it develops its own organizing logic around a stake at stake. Each field is marked by its own taken-for-granted understanding of the world, implicit and explicit rules of behavior, and valuation of what confers power onto someone: that is, what counts as “capital.” The analysis of power through the habitus/field makes it possible to transcend the distinctions between the material and the “ideational” as well as between the individual and the structural. Moreover, working with habitus/field in international studies problematizes the role played by central organizing divides, such as the inside/outside and the public/private; and can uncover politics not primarily structured by these divides. Developing research drawing on habitus/field in international studies will be worthwhile for international studies scholars wishing to raise and answer questions about symbolic power/violence.

scholarly journals Obywatelstwo i narodowość w językowym obrazie świata młodzieży

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Anna Hau ◽  
Katarzyna Wądołowska-Lesner
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Young People ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Reality

In the undertaken study, the understanding of the concepts of citizenship and nationality by the Polish young people, I assume that these categories are essential in terms of shaping the national identity of the individual. The system of concepts that define the personality of a human, the ability to reflect on their content, correctness, common connection, allows individuals to unite into a certain community. Thus, the analysis of linguistic ways of describing non-linguistic reality is also associated with the description of the mental representations of the individual, and therefore the ways – in cognitive processes – to relate to the world, to make an image of the world, to create knowledge about the world.

scholarly journals Bilingualism and Creativity

OxIPO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
Mihaela Birescu
Keyword(s):  
Educational Systems ◽  
Creative Performance ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Effective Learning ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Creative Education ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

Play is a very effective learning tool for children, and most of the educational systems admit this. Play activities are linked to: exploration, fun, freedom, investigation, enquiry, learning, social development, coping with anxieties, making sense of the world and using up energy. Through play, children develop abilities – for example they learn languages, and they do so, by four principles: enjoyment, method, system, and patience. Bilingual practice improves cognitive mechanisms, which may lead to increased creative potential. By combining bilingual and creative education, the cognitive mechanisms would help the individual creative performance and would create a synergetic bilingual creative model of education.

scholarly journals IMAGE OF THE FUTURE: DESIGN AND REPRESENTATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-95
Author(s):  
M. K. Kremenchutska ◽  
І. V. Dobrynina
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Future Design ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Impact ◽  
World Image

Problem statement. It is shown that the main scientific vectors of the study of the personality image of the future can be considered philosophical, sociological, psychophysiological and psychological. In psychology, the future is revealed as a property of the mental. It is determined that the psychological phenomenology of the image of the future is that it is a holistic view of the individual about the future. It is in the mind and constantly affects behavior, activities, and its emotional state. The ability of an individual to construct his own future is due to the peculiarities of his individual psychological representations. This aspect is little studied in psychological science.  The purpose of the article is to present methods and techniques of research of representations and designing the world image of the future by the person. Results of the research. It is noted that the process of forming the image of the future is not only a vision of the end result, but also the impact on the assessment of behavior, consolidation of moral, volitional, intellectual efforts to realize their own expectations. This emphasizes the subjective nature of this process. In the framework of the research of mental representations and the peculiarities of constructing personality images of the future in a particular individual context were identified the mediative and moderative components that influence this phenomenon. The author’s method of assessing the world image of the future is presented. It is a technique of subjective scaling — that is, it shows how the individual imagines his future. To assess the relationship between the studied indicators, which are operationalized as concepts of psychosemantic analysis, a multidimensional deployment was used. Conclusions and prospects for further research. It is concluded that the psychosemantic approach is the most informative in the identified abilities of the individual to construct images of their own future. It is noted that the prospects for further research will be to identify the re lationship between forms and strategies for building mental representations of the image of the future with strategies for individual behavior in difficult life situations.

scholarly journals Toddlers with ASD can use language to update their expectations about the world

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Fitch ◽  
Annalisa Valadez ◽  
Patricia A. Ganea ◽  
Alice Carter ◽  
Zsuzsa Kaldy
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Verbal Information ◽  
Verbal Abilities ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

This study examined if two-year-olds with ASD can update mental representations on the basis of verbal input. In an eye-tracking study, toddlers with ASD and typically-developing nonverbal age-matched controls were exposed to visual or verbal information about a change in a recently encoded scene, followed by an outcome that was either congruent or incongruent with that information. Findings revealed that both groups looked longer at incongruent outcomes, regardless of information modality, and despite the fact that toddlers with ASD had significantly lower measured verbal abilities than TD toddlers. This demonstrates that, although there is heterogeneity on the individual level, young toddlers with ASD can succeed in updating their mental representations on the basis of verbal input in a low-demand task.

New walls to keep the bad out: populism and the totalitarian psyche

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
Coline Covington
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Group Solidarity ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
Psychic Development ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War

The Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989 and marked the end of the Cold War. As old antagonisms thawed a new landscape emerged of unification and tolerance. Censorship was no longer the principal means of ensuring group solidarity. The crumbling bricks brought not only freedom of movement but freedom of thought. Now, nearly thirty years later, globalisation has created a new balance of power, disrupting borders and economies across the world. The groups that thought they were in power no longer have much of a say and are anxious about their future. As protest grows, we are beginning to see that the old antagonisms have not disappeared but are, in fact, resurfacing. This article will start by looking at the dissembling of a marriage in which the wall that had peacefully maintained coexistence disintegrates and leads to a psychic development that uncannily mirrors that of populism today. The individual vignette leads to a broader psychological understanding of the totalitarian dynamic that underlies populism and threatens once again to imprison us within its walls.

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Simone
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Existential Perspective

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.

“Utopia First!” A Machiavellian Conception of Solidarity in More's Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (Number 209) (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Phélippeau
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Farm Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Difficulties ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Communal Organization

This paper shows how solidarity is one of the founding principles in Thomas More's Utopia (1516). In the fictional republic of Utopia described in Book II, solidarity has a political and a moral function. The principle is at the center of the communal organization of Utopian society, exemplified in a number of practices such as the sharing of farm work, the management of surplus crops, or the democratic elections of the governor and the priests. Not only does solidarity benefit the individual Utopian, but it is a prerequisite to ensure the prosperity of the island of Utopia and its moral preeminence over its neighboring countries. However, a limit to this principle is drawn when the republic of Utopia faces specific social difficulties, and also deals with the rest of the world. In order for the principle of solidarity to function perfectly, it is necessary to apply it exclusively within the island or the republic would be at risk. War is not out of the question then, and compassion does not apply to all human beings. This conception of solidarity, summed up as “Utopia first!,” could be dubbed a Machiavellian strategy, devised to ensure the durability of the republic. We will show how some of the recommendations of Realpolitik made by Machiavelli in The Prince (1532) correspond to the Utopian policy enforced to protect their commonwealth.

Drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness: Linguistic insights into Sylvia Plath’s experience of depression

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Demjén
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Linguistic Approach

This paper demonstrates how a range of linguistic methods can be harnessed in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘lived experience’ of psychological disorders. It argues that such methods should be applied more in medical contexts, especially in medical humanities. Key extracts from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are examined, as a case study of the experience of depression. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods, and inter- and intra-textual comparisons are used to consider distinctive patterns in the use of metaphor, personal pronouns and (the semantics of) verbs, as well as other relevant aspects of language. Qualitative techniques provide in-depth insights, while quantitative corpus methods make the analyses more robust and ensure the breadth necessary to gain insights into the individual experience. Depression emerges as a highly complex and sometimes potentially contradictory experience for Plath, involving both a sense of apathy and inner turmoil. It involves a sense of a split self, trapped in a state that one cannot overcome, and intense self-focus, a turning in on oneself and a view of the world that is both more negative and more polarized than the norm. It is argued that a linguistic approach is useful beyond this specific case.

The Attempt to Author the World: How Intellectualism Denies the Individual

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. Wheelock
Keyword(s):  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Existential Theory ◽  
Feminist Scholar ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Existential Issues

Although primarily known as a feminist scholar and author of such works as She Came to Stay and The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir contributed heavily to French existential thought. The two writings upon which this paper focuses, The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Woman Destroyed, deal with the existential issues involved in human interactions and personal relationships. The Ethics of Ambiguity, famous as an exploration of the ethical code created by existential theory, begins with a criticism of Marxism and the ways in which it deviates from existentialism. Similarly, the first of the three short stories that make up de Beauvoir’s fictional work The Woman Destroyed follows the French intelligentsia and their similarities and digressions from Marxist and existential thought. In this paper, I seek to analyze Simone de Beauvoir’s criticism of Marxist theory in The Ethics of Ambiguity and its transformation into the critique of intellectualism found twenty years later in The Woman Destroyed. I will investigate Marxism’s alleged attempts to constrain the group it wishes to lead and the motivation behind these actions. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the efficacy of fiction as a medium for de Beauvoir’s philosophy.

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