An analysis of the Scientific progress of Social Cognition in the light of the perspective of "new Experimentalism"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17575/psicologia.v35i1.1623Keywords:
New Experimentalism, Social CognitionAbstract
Social Cognition is a conceptual and empirical approach that attempts to explain psychosocial phenomena through the structures and cognitive processes underlying it. This approach, with its genesis in the 1980s, has contributed to the understanding of the human mind taking it as eminently social. In this article, we discuss its contribution to scientific progress in the conception of the "new experimentalism" epistemological approach. New experimentalism characterizes scientific progress as the result of the accumulation of "good experimental paradigms". We offer a number of examples of what should be considered as "good paradigms" in social cognition, focusing on the paradigms of Illusory Correlations in the perception of human groups; the Mere-Exposure paradigm, the Suppressing Thoughts paradigm; and the Mood as Moderator of cognitive processing paradigm.
Downloads
References
Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055756
Barsalou, L. (2003). Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18(5-6), 513–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960344000026
Bird, A. (2007). What is scientific progress? Noûs, 41(1), 64-89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00638.x
Bless, H., Clore, G. L., Schwarz, N., Golisano, V., Rabe, C., & Wölk, M. (1996). Mood and the use of scripts: Does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(4), 665–679. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.4.665
Bodenhausen, G. V. (1993). Emotion, arousal and stereotypic judgment: A heuristic model of affect and stereotyping. In D. Mackie & D. Hamilton (Eds.), Affect, cognition and stereotyping: Interactive processes in intergroup perception (pp. 13-37). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-088579-7.50006-5
Bornstein, R. F. (1989). Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research, 1968–1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106(2), 265–289. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.106.2.265
Bornstein, R. F., & D'Agostino, P. R. (1992). Stimulus recognition and the mere exposure effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 545–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.4.545
Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y. (Eds.). (1999). Dual-process theories in social psychology. Guilford Press.
Chapman, L. J. (1967). Illusory correlation in observational report. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6(1), 151-155. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(67)80066-5
Clark, D. M., Ball, S., & Pape, D. (1991). An experimental investigation of thought suppression. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29(3), 253–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(91)90115-j
Coltheart, M. (2006). Perhaps functional neuroimaging has not told us anything about the mind (so far). Cortex, 42(3), 422–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70374-5
Fiedler, K. (1991). The tricky nature of skewed frequency tables: An information loss account of distinctiveness-based illusory correlations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(1), 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.1.24
Forster, J., & Liberman, N. (2004). A motivational model of post-suppressional rebound. European Review of Social Psychology, 15(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280340000081
Freud, S. (1913). The interpretation of dreams. (A. A. Brill, Trans.). The Macmillan Company. (Original work published 1900)
Hamilton, D. L., & Gifford, R. K. (1976). Illusory correlation in interpersonal perception: A cognitive basis of stereotypic judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12(4), 392-407. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(76)80006-6
Hamilton, D. L., Devine, P. G., & Ostrom, T. M. (1994). Social cognition and classic issues in social psychology. In P. G. Devine, D. L. Hamilton, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Social cognition: Impact on social psychology (pp. 1-13). Academic Press.
Hamilton, D.L., Dugan, P., & Trolier, T.K. (1985). The formation of stereotypic beliefs: Further evidence for distinctiveness-based illusory correlations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(1), 5-17.
Harmon-Jones, E., & Allen, J. J. B. (2001). The role of affect in the mere exposure effect: Evidence from psychophysiological and individual differences approaches. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 889–898. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201277011
Hastie, R., Ostrom, T. M., Ebbensen, E. B., Wyer, R. S., Hamilton, D. L., & Carlston, D. E. (1980). Person memory. The cognitive basis of social perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Isen, A. M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 203–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60415-3
Jacoby, L. L. (1991). A process dissociation framework: Separating automatic from intentional uses of memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 30(5), 513–541. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-596x(91)90025-f
Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press
Lazarus, R. S. (1984). On the primacy of cognition. American Psychologist, 39(2), 124–129. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.39.2.124
Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., & Milne, A. B. (1998). Saying no to unwanted thoughts: Self-focus and the regulation of mental life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 578–589. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.578
Matlin, M. W. (1971). Response competition, recognition, and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 19(3), 295–300. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031352
Mayo, D. G. (1996). Error and the growth of experimental knowledge. University of Chicago Press
McConnell, A. R., Sherman, S. J., & Hamilton, D. L. (1994a). Illusory correlation in the perception of groups: An extension of the distinctiveness-based account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 414-429 https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.67.3.414
McConnell, A. R., Sherman, S. J., & Hamilton, D. L. (1994b). On-line and memory-based aspects of individual and group target judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(2), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.2.173
Moreland, R. L., & Zajonc, R. B. (1977). Is stimulus recognition a necessary condition for the occurrence of exposure effects? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(4), 191–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.191
Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(5), 723–739. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.5.723
Park, J., & Banaji, M. R. (2000). Mood and heuristics: The influence of happy and sad states on sensitivity and bias in stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(6), 1005–1023. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.6.1005
Popper, K. R. (1963). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. Routledge & Kegan Paul
Putnam, H. (1975). Mind, language, and reality. Cambridge University Press
Richardson-Klavehn, A., & Bjork, R. A. (1988). Measures of memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 39(1), 475–543. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.39.020188.002355
Ruder, M., & Bless, H. (2003). Mood and the reliance on the ease of retrieval heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.20
Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Sherman, S. J., & Hamilton, D. L. (1987). Illusory Correlation in the Perception of Individuals and Groups. Social Cognition, 5(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1987.5.1.1
Sarton, G. (1936). The study of the history of science. Harvard University Press
Schwarz, N. & Bless, H. (1991) Happy and mindless, but sad and smart? The impact of affective states on analytic reasoning. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.). Emotion and social judgements (pp. 55-70). Pergamon Press.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. Sorrentino (Eds.). Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527-561). Guilford.
Sherman, J. W., Kruschke, J. K., Sherman, S. J., Percy, E. J., Petrocelli, J. V., & Conrey, F. R. (2009). Attentional processes in stereotype formation: A common model for category accentuation and illusory correlation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 305–323. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013778
Stroessner, S. J., & Plaks, J. E. (2001). Illusory correlation and stereotype formation: Tracing the arc of research over a quarter century. In G. B. Moskowitz (Ed.), Cognitive social psychology: The Princeton symposium on the legacy and future of social cognition (pp. 247-259). Laurence Elrbaum Associates
Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101(1), 34–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.101.1.34
Wegner, D. M., & Erber, R. (1992). The hyperaccessibility of suppressed thoughts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(6), 903–912. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.6.903
Wegner, D. M., & Gold, D. B. (1995). Fanning old flames: Emotional and cognitive effects of suppressing thoughts of a past relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(5), 782–792. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.5.782
Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.53.1.5
Wenzlaff, R. M., & Wegner, D. M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Winter, L., & Uleman, J. S. (1984). When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(2), 237–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.2.237
Worth, L. T., & Mackie, D. M. (1987). Cognitive mediation of positive affect in persuasion. Social Cognition, 5(1), 76-94. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1987.5.1.76
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2, Pt. 2), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025848
Zajonc, R. B. (1980) Feeling and thinking: Preferences need on inferences. American Psychologist, 35(2), 151-175. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.35.2.151
