The cognitive turn in social psychology, promoted in the late 1970s by pioneers like Tory Higgins, Dave Hamilton, and John Bargh, fundamentally reshaped the field. Through the lens of social cognition research, central issues in social psychology (e.g., impression and attitude formation, intergroup relations) are investigated at the level of information processing. Studies of social cognition examine the structures and processes involved in the perception of other people (including their faces), attribution of behaviors, forming representations and evaluations of social objects (e.g., people, groups), as well as stereotyping and prejudice. The seminar will provide students with an understanding of the concepts, methods and findings of research on the following main topics:
- The distinctive approach of social cognition: Factors of perceiving objects as human(-like)
- An early cognitive perspective: Attribution research
- (Automatic) activation of knowledge from memory in social thinking and behavior
- When social cognition becomes unfair: Stereotyping and prejudice
- Social cognition as co-cognition: Sharing representations with social subjects |
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