Social Context and Cognitive Performance

Towards a Social Psychology of Cognition

Pascal Huguet, Jean-Marc Monteil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134840779
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Based on twenty years of research on the social regulation of academic performances, this book offers theoretical and empirical arguments in favour of the inclusion of the social dimension of human beings as essential for their cognitive activities.
We all engage in social interactions, compare ourselves with other people, belong to social groups, and are the object of a myriad of categorisations. Not only do such social experiences affect cognition, but they actually determine its form and its content. Several experiments indeed reveal that cognitive performance depends on the relationship between the individual and the social context in which cognition takes place. And this relationship is not forged directly by features of the situation, but rather by personal construals of these features (most notably social comparison). This fact alone justifies granting the individual's social experiences a psychological status and it further strengthens the key idea of this book, namely that the social context only exists through the intervention of cognitive processes of contextualization (producing a "cognitive context of the self") such as those involved in autobiographical memory. A "social psychology of cognition" is suggested, in which the fashionable distinction between cognition and social cognition makes no sense.
From this innovative perspective it is indeed more the social nature of the individual rather than that of the object to be processed that defines the social nature of cognition. Well-known phenomena such as social facilitation and social loafing as well as established educational practices are also re-examined from this perspective.

CHAPTER ONE

Towards a social psychology of cognition

When scientific psychology approaches the study of cognition, either through the processes allowing its construction or through those involved in its mobilization, the prevailing theoretical paradigm is still that of cognitive psychology.

As in any scientific method, the aim is to interrelate theoretical models and empirical facts. This dialectic is expressed through the confrontation between two approaches. The first, which is essentially a modelling approach, shares with artificial intelligence an interest in simulating more or less complex behaviour. The second, which is an experimental approach, seeks to confirm its hypotheses through empiricism. No one will dispute the validity of these theoretical and methodological orientations. Both are essential and fruitful, and provide insight into human mental activity. Both state the problem of cognitive acquisition, construction, and production in the following terms: on the one hand, a subject with allegedly universal cognitive properties, and on the other hand, an object endowed with intrinsic properties. The individual is assumed to apply these universal properties to the intrinsic properties of the object. The research procedure consists in setting up, either by simulation or by experimentation, the necessary conditions for observing the participant’s implementation of the properties used to process the object. The object may either be a person, a physical object or a problem to solve. In some cases, it is presented in various contexts in order to test for modifications in the way the processing is done by the participant. Can such a well-established conception undergo a significant change, or is it in a position to allow a parallel, perhaps even an alternative, conception?

The redefinition or recategorization of objects and issues previously considered well established often stimulates new research or revitalizes a field of study. Such transformations in the meaning of objects are likely to bring deep and lasting changes in every discipline. Indeed, they may either reduce or extend the field of study, highlight neglected objects, introduce new perspectives or modify prevailing theoretical conceptions. A process of this kind has been at the root of the most extensive modifications in many areas of social psychology in the course of the last fifty years.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Such a renewal first took place at the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, when Heider’s (1958) primary work introduced the concept of attribution. Researchers then began to look at the way people in their daily lives assign causality to their own behaviour, to the behaviour of others, and to impersonal events occurring in their environment. Once stated, this issue generated a great deal of research.

With the emergence of the social cognition trend at the end of the seventies, the objects studied in social psychology underwent a new transformation. The quest then became the understanding of how people perceive the world and the social relationships assumed to be its foundations. With this trend (cf. e.g. Higgins & Bargh, 1987; Schneider, 1991; Sherman, Judd, & Park, 1989 for reviews), mainly derived from the theories and research paradigms of cognitive psychology, the question of attribution became just another issue in the field of social cognition. Supported by the information-processing metaphor, the popularity of this trend was to some extent a reflection of the growing influence of cognitive psychology. From then on social psychologists began to direct their research activity towards new objects: encoding, organization, storage, recall, or recognition of social information. These new directions raised issues that required the development of more vigorous and complex methodologies that could help provide insight into more subtle cognitive processes and mechanisms.

Social psychology—at least its experimental form—may be in fact considered cognitive since the forties. Asch’s (1946) work on impression formation is still quoted. Despite this past, the social cognition movement in some sense reshaped the questions faced by social psychologists by drawing their attention to the work done in cognitive psychology. However, this increasing concern with intrapsychic processes became (and probably still is) the basis of some exceedingly vivid controversies about social cognition.

OF SOME CONTROVERSIES ABOUT SOCIAL COGNITION

While some psychologists, such as Simon (1976), see no substantial difference between cognition and social cognition, others, like Zajonc (1989), clearly differentiate between the two. The former consider every cognitive phenomenon to be governed by the same general process. The latter think that the characteristics of human beings, both as objects of knowledge and as knowing individuals, make social cognition and perception qualitatively distinct from the perception of inanimate objects.

The social cognition trend has been “criticized” in many other respects, such as its immoderate use of information processing theory, its neglect of affects, motivations, and other social “practices”, its failure to consider the context in which cognitive phenomena take place (social interactions, group membership, norms and values, etc.). In short, the matter is still hotly debated (Beauvois, Monteil, & Trognon, 1991; Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994), but also quite sterile.

We shall not get involved in a confrontation of arguments trying to defend a conception that either integrates or differentiates cognition and social cognition. Relying on the results of the experimental studies presented later in this book, we would merely like to put forward certain reflections that will hopefully launch a debate in a less conventional conceptual area of social psychology.

Cognition and Social Cognition

In our opinion, the problem is not whether or not the structures and contents of the knowledge involved in information processing are different depending on the social or non-social nature of the information. Neither is the question one of choosing between individual cognition and collective cognition, i.e. between individual knowledge structure and contents, and collective or shared knowledge structure and contents. On a functional level, it is most important first to describe and understand how individuals construct their cognitions through interaction with the environment, and which mechanisms and skills they use to construct this cognitive world. At this level, the distinction between cognition and social cognition is not very meaningful. We must next describe and understand how the products of this cognitive world are exchanged and shared, i.e. how they are “socialized”, and act in their turn upon the cognitive apparatus through a kind of social constructivism. At this level, too, the preceding distinction is somewhat meaningless. However, the social psychology of cognition can find the bases for its existence in the conjunction of these two objectives.

In the academic context of cognitive psychology, it must be acknowledged that the social is, at best, considered to be a derived or reactive element of human activities. We may notice that a large part of the cognitive social psychology inspired by Heider derives from a general paradigm of this type. The fact that the object (and therefore the information) is social does not separate cognitive and social psychology. It is simply conceded that the social dimension somewhat complicates the models likely to account for cognitive functioning.

Conversely, there also exists the socio-determinist approach, according to which cognitive competence and its development would only depend on influences from the environment and on the place held by the individual in social relationships. Both these positions, if taken as mutually exclusive, are obviously unsatisfactory for social psychologists. In our opinion, neither the intra-individual level nor the social positions and societal relationships level should be neglected. Indeed, both should be taken into account, which is precisely what social psychology is trying to articulate (Doise, 1982). But we will discuss this topic later. For now let us be satisfied with neurobiology’s unexpected support of theses substantiating the importance of social experience in the individual’s structuring (Monteil, 1993a).

THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF THE “NEURAL INDIVIDUAL”

Amongst the most highly active and fruitful lines of research, those focusing on the construction of the brain are rapidly acquiring new knowledge. These studies inform us about the structure and functioning of an organ that, not so long ago, was thought to be an impenetrable black box. Moreover, some people consider that the rapid development of neurosciences, including the neurobiology of behaviour, marks a true intellectual revolution: the “neural revolution” (Changeux, 1983). As a body of research focusing on the structure, development, and behavioural effects of the central and peripheral nervous systems, the neurosciences have quite understandably fascinated psychologists. This fascination has sometimes led them to adopt the neurosciences’ discursive reasoning, even though they often lacked the scientific expertise to do so. Consequently, rather than subjecting psychology to the neurosciences in order to give it a new legitimacy, our knowledge of human functioning would no doubt gain more if we retained only those contributions that would allow psychology to further its participation in the realm of the basic sciences, all the while maintaining its specificity. It seems to us that some of these contributions justify the usefulness of psychology, and more particularly of social psychology.

A Neural Postulate and Cognitive Approaches

No one today questions the fact that the development of the brain is the result of genetic programming. However, everyone also agrees that in the human species, more than in any other, the execution of that programme is quite flexible. This flexibility, called epigenesis, precludes discussion of a strict determinism: “Every human being has inscribed in the very structure of his brain through particular neural networks, the special affective, social and cultural history that is his” (Lecourt, 1989, p.142, our translation). Certain studies provide a remarkably striking illustration of this determining role of epigenesis. For instance, we may consider the studies on the Japanese brain that show hemispherical specialization for the use of two different writing systems. The alphabetical system, the Kana, relies on the left hemisphere, while the ideogrammatic system, the Kanji, relies on the right hemisphere. In human beings, this indeterminate part, linked to epigenesis, opens the possibility of acting upon the very programme that itself is transmitted. Indeed, the higher up the evolutionary ladder one moves, the more the epigenetic component gains importance in the construction of individuals. The more this epigenetic part is important, the closer the link between the structure of the nervous system and the individual’s history: “Man’s central nervous system forms a kind of engram of his personal history, and the human individual, unique and thus “unclonable”, is the product of his social history … This history is marked in the individual’s physical structure, i.e. it is written in the cerebral matter itself, owing to the importance of epigenesis, which will stabilize one circuit or the other” (Prochiantz, 1989, p.18, our translation).

If, as suggested, the social dimension has an influence on the construction of neural networks to the extent of being undissociable from their development, strictly neuroscientific psychologists should find therein some matter for thought. Indeed, don’t they postulate a one-to-one correspondence between each individual mental state (situated in time and space) and a specific neurophysiological state? Cognitive psychology, which to some extent still keeps its distance from neurosciences, views this identity relation as simply occasional, in which case we speak of functionalism. Such a conception allows cognitive psychology to reconcile two requirements: One is to be part of the natural sciences, by virtue of which it claims to share a materialistic or physicalistic ontology; the other is the necessity of maintaining a certain degree of explicative autonomy with regard to neuropsychology. Consequently, it is difficult to grasp the reasons why cognitive psychology would regard social dimensions as outside its realm, since their importance is underlined in the sciences that use them as a point of comparison, or even of reference. If physical matter bears the mark of the individual’s social history, it becomes conceivable that a symbolic “engram” of the social dimension might exist in long-term memory and might play a part in the development and the cognitive functioning of the human being.

It thus seems difficult to exclude this dimension from the study of learning processes, particularly if one considers, as does cognitive psychology, that there exists a highly structured inner life and that explanations need to be sought on the basis of well-ordered sequences of inner states. Classical cognitivism indeed recognizes that propositional attitudes (i.e. mental attitudes related to propositional content, such as believing that, wishing that) are real states of organisms that determine behaviour. The importance of taking the subject’s social history into account thus becomes apparent, since it is at the very root of the construction of propositional content. The research into cognitive explanations is also concerned with representations and mental states situated at infra-personal levels. Fodor (1983) has distinguished two cognitive systems, which are quite autonomous in certain respects. The first one, peripheral, is characterized by an isolated information processing system. The second one, central, allows for integrated inferences. The former refers to the infra-personal level of cognition, whereas the latter designates the personal level. In both cases the social cannot be dismissed. Indeed, in the peripheral system, the social appears as a component part of the stimulus—the percept—and in the central system it can participate in the development of the concept. The distinction between percept and concept must be understood here in terms of the meaning given by Woodfield (1986).

Another issue among others, although equally important, remains the existence or not of two types of thoughts: a first type of limited content, simply internal to the individual, and another type of wider content dependent upon the individual’s environment, such as is exemplified by Putnam with his “la terre jumelle” thought experiment. This would entail that two individuals could have the same inner psychology even though their thoughts might have different referential contents. Going even further, we may also consider that every thought content may depend for its individuation on external factors, among them social factors. This externalistic view of cognition might question cognitive psychology in a strict sense, while maintaining the reality of mental attitudes. It is noteworthy, however, that Searle (1985) has disputed Putnam’s “extensionalism”.

Without going any further, and no matter the rivalry between the different approaches to cognition, it seems perfectly conceivable to view the human individual as a socially inserted neurophysiological and pyschological system. As such, the individual constructs mental representations, and processes and stores information to be later activated (either automatically or consciously), in order to act in the real world. Thus, if one truly wishes to understand human cognitive functioning, social insertions cannot be neglected. Because of the importance newly given to “social insertion”, we will later on provide a precise definition of it.

SEVERAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIES?

In 1989, the European Journal of Social Psychology (see vol. 19, no. 5) raised important epistemological questions, specifically in the context of the psychosocial study of human cognition. Indeed, these questions allow for a confrontation between various viewpoints, which in the end may lead, at least in our opinion, to a synthesis between the cognitive sciences and social psychology. The first viewpoint, defended by Zajonc (1989) and Nuttin (1989) and inspired by the natural sciences, sought explanations in terms of inner causal mechanisms in the individual. Conversely, one could also point to a social psychology rejecting any explanatory system based solely on inner mechanisms, offering instead a social constructionism approach (Gergen, 1989) wherein mental life takes its root essentially in the social. Close to this idea, Harré (1989) considers, moreover, that cognitive psychology, which studies mental life at the individual level, is nothing but an illustration of what he calls the “privatization of the social”. Gergen and Harré’s stance is seemingly close to Doise’s (1989) and Moscovici’s (1989) “psychological constructivism”. However, according to Gergen and Harré, the fact of viewing the psychological as basically social leads them to reject the experimental methods championed by Zajonc and Nuttin, and to offer instead investigations using as a starting-point discourse analysis, for example. Doise and Moscovici’s constructivism, on the other hand, relies on psycho-logical methodological approaches.

Without moving any further into this epistemological debate within social psychology (see notably Israël & Tajfel, 1972), a few basic problems concerning social psychologists’ views on cognitive functioning may however be identified. Firstly, the status of the social within social psychology should be questioned, for it is a status that appears to be variously defined, to say the least. Secondly, one must note the lack of a thorough reflection on the status of the cognitive, especially since mental life and its products really are the centre of preoccupations in this area. In summarizing the various positions, two particular stances are capable of including all viewpoints and allowing us to enquire into the role of the social in the field of the psychology of cognition. In the first stance, the social is defined to a certain extent by the individual, and the psychological functioning finds its own material basis in the brain. The social is thus a derived and reactive product of an individual activity governed by physiological as well as neuro-physiological laws. Secondly, in Doise and Moscovici’s stance, social interaction, communication, and social meta-systems, permeated by norms and values, influence cognitive functioning and participate in the construction of new forms of cognition. However, the mechanisms and processes through which the social informs and influences this functioning, thus participating in cognitive activity, still remain to be identified.

It is probably not enough to state, along with Vygotsky, that individuals internalize what they construct first in the social in order to be able to explain this internalization process. Likewise, one may conceive that human behavior can be directed by socially shared representations (Moscovici, 1961, 1984). But exactly how these representations are constructed and how they evolve in time and space remain relatively unclear (see Huguet & Latané, 1996; Huguet, Latané, & Bourgeois, 1998b). Transmitted and communicated by other individuals through everyday micro-contacts, such representations would appear to be changed into public representations by the person who communicates them, then changed again following a kind of epidemiological process (Sperber, 1985; 1996). Such an explanation, however, is not completely satisfying: We must still pursue our inquiry concerning the generation of the very first representation, thus bringing us back to the question of individual cognitive activity and of its possible social determinants.

These elements illustrate quite well a certain difficulty in truly grasping the social dimension following a common viewpoint and a univocal definition of its influence on cognition.

WHAT PLACE DOES THE SOCIAL DIMENSION HOLD IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING?

If we agree that one of social psychology’s specific aims is to understand the functioning of human beings as both participants in and partakers of the social world, we should easily subscribe to the following statement: Studying the individual from a psychosocial point of view entails first considering the individual as a socially inserted being, and then striving to construct explanatory systems that take social insertion in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Acknowledgement
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Towards a social psychology of cognition
• 2. The cognitive and social bases of “insertion”
• 3. The social regulation of academic performances
• 4. An “autobiographical attention effect”: A second series of studies
• 5. Preliminaries to a social comparison feedback theory
• 6. Social facilitation and inhibition: Markers and thoughts
• 7. Social-cognitive regulation in co-working group contexts
• 8. Pointers for educational action
• General conclusion
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index