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.

Social Cognition: How Individuals Construct Social Reality (Social Psychology: A Modular Course (Hardcover))

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Bless, Herbert

Fiedler, Klaus

Mental Health

Psychology Press

Social Cognition: How Individuals Construct Social Reality (Social Psychology: A Modular Course)

Social cognition is a key area of social psychology, which focuses on cognitive processes that are involved when individuals make sense of, and navigate in their social world. For instance, individuals need to understand what they perceive, they learn and recall information from memory, they form judgments and decisions, they communicate with others, and they regulate their behavior. While all of these topics are also key to other fields of psychological research, it’s the social world―which is dynamic, complex, and often ambiguous―that creates particular demands.  This accessible book introduces the basic themes within social cognition and asks questions such as: How do individuals think and feel about themselves and others? How do they make sense of their social environment? How do they interact with others in their social world? The book is organized along an idealized sequence of social information processing that starts at perceiving and encoding, and moves on to learning, judging, and communicating. It covers not only processes internal to the individual, but also facets of the environment that constrain cognitive processing. Throughout the book, student learning is fostered with examples, additional materials, and discussion questions. With its subdivision in ten chapters, the book is suitable both for self-study and as companion material for those teaching a semester-long course. This is the ideal comprehensive introduction to this thriving and captivating field of research for students of psychology.

Greifeneder, Rainer

Psychology & Counseling

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bless, Herbert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bless, Herbert