Week 1 - Philosophical Roots of Modern Cognitive Psychology & Social Cognition

what is social cognition?

• social cognition: investigates mental mechanisms involved in social situations

  • when people interact with one another (actually or virtually)

  • considered a blend of multiple disciplines including….

    • social psychology

    • cognitive psychology

    • plus other stuff ig (philosophy, biology, neuroscience, anthropology, political science, sociology, etc.)

what contribution did Plato make to social cognition?

• He introduced the tripartite view of the mind:

  • rational soul (cognition, reason)

  • will (volition, moral judgement)

  • animal soul (motivation and emotion)

Perception, thinking, and memory operate on _____________.

mental representations

• where do mental representations come from?

• what are mental representations?

• who popularized this idea?

• mental representations are creations of the mind

• they are “symbols in the head” which include pictures, sounds, beliefs, memories of the outside world. They are a basic mental element, a unit of thought

• popularized by Plato

how did Descartes contribute to social cognition?

• He endorsed dualism

  • dualism: the belief that the mind (soul) is distinct from the body

what is dualism?

• consists of two things: body and mind (soul)

• body

  • directly observable

  • obeys natural laws (is material and mechanistic)

  • can be experiented upon

  • controls reflexive behavior that do not require conscious thought

  • common with animals (automatons)

• mind

  • observable only through interaction with body

  • immaterial and unknowable

  • source of free will, undermined choices

  • governs complex behavior, conscious thought

  • uniquely human

what is difference between reflexive vs reflective acts?

• Reflexive (soulless)

  • some acts involve the actual, physical reflex-like body

  • “lower passions” are automatic, mechanical, animal-like

• Reflective (soulful)

  • some acts involve the reflective mind

  • “higher passions” are reflective, deliberate, mindful in nature

• what is the psychophysical problem of the mind-body interaction?

  • where do the mind and body interact?

  • what are the physiological representations of passions?

• def: a fundamental question in philosophy and neuroscience that asks how our minds and bodies interact and if they are distinct or part of a single entity

  • the mind (soul) and body interact via the pineal gland

  • passions are events that create particular strong “vibrations” of the pineal gland — resulting in strong mind-body interactions