The Social Context

The seventh chapter argues for the importance of the social context in continuing to influence whether social cognition is engaged or not, and describes a version of the delayed sudden death virus outbreak thought experiment without the death and virus components, set in modern society. This chapter then reviews classical social psychological studies that illustrate the power of the social context in shaping social cognition and resulting behaviour. It describes different types of social contexts, and explores the role of consistency motives in guiding human behaviour. Finally, it makes an appeal for a spectrum metaphor for social behavior, rather than alternative metaphors that categorise the phenomenon too narrowly.

Naive Scientists

The fifth chapter presents a toy model for the development of social cognition based on psychology experiments that explore this ability in babies, infants and children. It explores when infants dissociate people from objects and other non-human agents, reviewing classical models in developmental psychology that describe these processes. It also explores the development of language, intentionality, and emotion in infants, highlighting commonalities and differences between these important components of social cognition. Finally, it addresses the theoretical debate between theory-theory and and simulation accounts of social cognition, before arguing for a more social psychological perspective that takes the social context into account.

The Economic Context

The eight chapter explores how social cognition functions in economic contexts, describing economical tendencies that are shared across species, and highlighting the difference between economic and social contexts. It then examines the 2007 global financial crisis as a case study about the problems caused by engaging social cognition in economic contexts. Finally, it explores labor markets as a second example where problems might arises if social cognition is inappropriately engaged, and argues that social cognition can often get in the way of economic motives, resulting in sub-optimal economic decisions and human exploitation.

Explanation

The fourth chapter argues that explanation may be the function of social cognition, aiding survival and driving human evolution. It explores the psychological literature on anthropomorphism—instances where people bring non-human agents and entities to life by engaging social cognition—and describes it as a type of ‘magical’ or imaginary thinking. It then contrasts this ability with dehumanizing people, describing the brain mechanisms enabling dehumanization, and the functions of withholding social cognition to people. It then considers extending social cognition to animals as a domain where the flexible nature of social cognition is revealed. Finally, it implicates explanation as a causal factor in intractable group conflict.

Evolution

The second chapter introduces the evolutionary perspective on social cognition, emphasizing the prioritorizing of survival and reproduction as basic human motives. It then describes an example of the interaction between genes and environment that directs evolution, before considering the universality of emotions as an example of the product of evolutionary pressures shaped by social motives that stem from the basic human motives. It then addresses the how and why questions surrounding humans’ advanced social and intellectual abilities, pinpointing spontaneous social cognition and gesture and language respectively. It then explores modern environmental pressures that continue to guide human beings’ social and intellectual evolution.

Tension

The first chapter states that flexible social cognition—having the ability to engage and not engage in mental state inferences with others—perhaps explains why people are capable of pro and anti-social behaviour. It introduces a classical equation for social behaviour, before suggesting an edit that equation that accounts for social cognition. It then suggests a metaphor to explain how social cognition might be engaged based on the social context. Next, it defines the key terms for the argument surrounding flexible social cognition: flexible and mental state inference as the most fundamental form of social cognition. It reconciles differences in the use of various psychological jargon for various types of social cognition, then defines social groups, explaining their importance to the general theory.

Social Contract

The ninth chapter argues that the law punishes bad minds, not bad people; as a result, social cognition is paramount in legal decision-making. It then reviews the psychological literature on punishment, discussing motives. It then uses the racial history of America as a case study, highlighting how historic dehumanization during and after slavery shaped modern American racial problems. It reviews the literature on racial bias and the brain, then discusses the ‘black ape’ stereotype as a form of continued dehumanization of people of African descent in America. It then explores police shootings of people of African descent as a continuation of a dehumanization tradition in America, highlighting the role of flexible social cognition in facilitating these behaviors. Finally, it ends by recommending that labels like ‘African American’ need to be abandonned if American society is ever to move beyond its racial problems; a superordinate category is required that reduces arbitrary distinctions based on the social construction of race.

Further Societal Implications

The tenth and concluding chapter revisits the classic equation introduced in the first chapter, and wonders whether the terms in the equation could be further specified. Specifically, it asks whether the social context could be further specified. It argues that the brain is continuously evolving, and modern environmental pressures will continue to shape social cognition. It explores two other contexts where flexible social cognition may be necessary: medical care and non-violent inter-group competition. Finally, it imagines how social cognition might shape human beings over the next hundred years given technological advancements that facilitate and hamper this most important cognitive ability.

The Delayed Sudden Death Virus Outbreak

The six chapter presents a thought experiment that examines why flexible social cognition may have been evolutionarily preserved. It introduces the human capacity for deception as a possible situational factor that promoted flexible social cognition related to human migratory patterns during the ancestral past. It examines the interplay between the self and social groups, before revisiting the thought experiment set in modern society instead of human’s ancestral past. It then explores deception, intention, and complex mental life as situational factors that would affect the outcome of the thought experiment in this modern context.

Prediction

The third chapter introduces prediction as a Bayesian process that ensures survival. It then focuses on social prediction—predicting other people’s behavior—exploring consistently low correlations between traits (a form of social cognition) and behavior. It then describes the brain correlates of prediction violation, social reward, and social punishment, before arguing that social cognition may not be necessary to predict other people’s behavior; instead people may rely on other heuristics such as social norms. Therefore, it discounts the importance of social cognition for this aspect of human survival.