The Self and Interactions with the Environment

Dr. Stan Jasiurkowski

Introduction

Social cognition encompasses cognitive processes that the individual employs to encode and decode the surrounding social world. It includes information about how the individual processes input and output about other people, perceptions of the self, and the norms of the social world. The self might serve as a cognitive filter through which the individual perceives other people by making inferences, consciously or unconsciously, in regard to the intentions or emotions, or feelings of others (Beer & Ochsner, 2006). Many times, self-beliefs can serve as a pivotal point for understanding people in the social context, and self-awareness along with social knowledge might enable individuals to successfully manage their lives, relationships, and different tasks. Literature demonstrates that these processes can occur as the automatic or controlled and might be influenced by a number of different cognitive and socio-developmental factors (Beer & Ochsner, 2006). This article will discuss how the self might influence social cognition through the self-regulation and self-awareness concepts and how the cognitive development might be influenced by biology and a socialization process. It will also investigate the factors that influence social attention, as individuals selectively attend to relevant information to make judgments and develop the best courses of action using social heuristics. Additionally, psychometrically sound measures for studying the self in the context of social cognition, social attention, and social heuristics will be discussed followed by closing remarks.

The Self and Social Cognition

Individuals develop self-concept by making comparisons with other people that are based on two dimensions, including superiority/inferiority as well as similarity/differences. In the first dimension, individuals evaluate themselves in terms of intelligence, attractiveness, or other capabilities in comparison to others and incorporate it into their self-concept which can have positive or negative consequences. Additionally, individuals perform comparisons to others based on similarities and differences which can have complicated perceptual influences. Generally, people want to have a certain assessment of their potential, abilities, and performance in comparison to others; however, how this information is incorporated and affects their self-concept might be complex. Some individuals are very competitive in every aspect of their social life and strive to always dominate, but some do not care much about their place in the social structure. The evaluations individuals place on their self-concept can lead to cycles of thinking and acting that depends on self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-esteem.

Self-regulation springs from several sources, including self-concept guiding social behavior under different circumstances, and can be modified by received feedback. It can be conceptualized as any instance in which individuals attempt to monitor, control, or alter their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors for some anticipated objective or situational demand (Hirt, Clarkson, & Jia, 2016). It can be argued that the self-efficacy and personal control is the primary source of self-regulation. Notably, individuals with high self-efficacy beliefs are not necessarily more able than are those with low self-efficacy beliefs, but because of their convictions and motivation they can succeed. Individuals also have a general sense of personal control which enables them to plan, deal with failures, and advance self-regulatory activities (Fiske & Taylor, 2017).

One of the factors impacting relationships is emotional self-awareness described as “the ability to recognize and understand emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and goals” by the individual and identify what impact they may have on other people (Igbinovia, 2016, p. 3). In other words, self-awareness requires consciousness, empathy, realistic self-confidence, and a clarity of one’s own values while interacting with others. Another critical factor is the concept of self-esteem which refers to an attitude that is driven by self-evaluation using positive or negative feelings or features of oneself (Pan, et al., 2016). Moss (2016) stated that people reporting a high explicit, but demonstrate a low implicit self-esteem tend to be defensive in response to negative feedback, and tend to discriminate against others. High explicit and implicit self-esteem helps to curb anger and improves overall mental health. Jordan, et al. (2013) explained that one of the reasons these differences between explicit and implicit self-esteem may be maladaptive is that it may reflect deficient integration of self-representation.

Nature and Nurture Influence on Cognitive Development

Nature is responsible for the growth of the individual, his or her genetic makeup, distinguishing features, and, perhaps, special talents or cognitive abilities. However, gens alone cannot guarantee that individuals will achieve a success in any area of their lives. According to Tucker-Drob, Briley, and Harden (2013), genetic differences between individuals account for about 50% of the variation of cognitive abilities assesses by the performance tests. These heritability estimates were based on the studies of fraternal and identical twins raised in all possible social configurations as well as molecular genetic studies (Tucker-Drob et al., 2013). Comparison of family, twin, and adoption studies indicated that the heritability of cognitive abilities may rise from childhood through youth to adulthood, and the impact of mutual developmental environment might decline by adolescence; however, these roles cannot be safely generalized (Plonin, Fulker, Corley, & DeFries, 1997). Therefore, the biological endowment along with family, school, church, and cultural environments may all together play critical roles in the cognitive development of each individual resulting in positive or negative social outcomes. Karmiloff and Karmiloff-Smith (2011) argued that the individual’s genetic propensity or special talents will not be properly realized without the nurturing. Literature indicates that high achievements are not necessarily results of better gens or being “born smarter”, but they must be perceived as the result of hard work and self-discipline that is related to the inherent abilities and the supportive environment (Karmiloff & Karmiloff-Smith, 2011). Kagan’s (2010) studies provide the evidence that environmental factors play important role in building positive or negative pathways for cognitive and social development. Therefore, individuals who inherited greater hostility, through proper environmental interventions, can significantly improve developmental outcomes (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). It is important to recognize that biological endowment is inseparable from socialization and both create a foundation of potential and growth as well as both present potential risks for dysfunctional social development.

The Self and Social Attention

Social attention is described as the capability to focus on specific external or internal stimuli or location which means that the individual must be oriented, motivated, aroused and have some innate figure-ground capability (Goldstein, 2011). In social settings, individuals’ attention is affected the most by (a) salience that makes a stimulus stand out, (b) vividness making a stimulus interesting, and (c) accessibility of relevant categories that give the perceiver goals, needs, and expectations (Fiske & Taylor, 2017). Salient individuals are perceived as significant and influential in a group, they receive exaggerated evaluations (positive or negative), and the impressions are organized coherently. Fiske and Taylor (2017) stated that individuals make specific inferences about personality based on the physical features and internal social configurations and infer various personality traits, including trustworthiness and competence. Despite the fact that these inferences are mostly spontaneous and common, they are not necessarily accurate. Additionally, people’s faces are what usually grabs one’s attention. Individuals are very proficient at recognizing faces, and this skill appears to be “a global, configural, holistic process that perceptually integrates” features related to facial perception and recognition of an individual (Fiske & Taylor, 2017, p. 66). It can be argued that people more rely on face recognition than on body language to make inferences about personality and attitude.

This process may lead to establishing verbal or non-verbal social communication with another person. The verbal message seems to be a significant part of this communication, but the way individuals communicate non-verbally is very important as it can be taken in by all five of human senses. People employ non-verbal communication to express their thoughts, emotions, or make their message more interesting or appealing to the partner of the ongoing conversation. Therefore, there are multiple forms of non-verbal communication and each of these forms illustrates or substitutes a certain element of the verbal communication. Phutela (2015) stated that both forms of communication are extremely important in any social encounter and they cannot be overestimated by all involved.

Social Heuristics and the Self

Social heuristics serve as a framework in which individuals are able to make satisfactory decisions and guide their behavior in a quick and easy manner without overwhelming their cognitive processing resources while interacting with others. Heuristics as cognitive strategies are typically accurate, reduce cognitive strain, speed up processing, but the mental representations might be less accurate and based on some degree of trial and error (Sharps at al., 2008). These social strategies may become automatic as intuitive responses and only a deliberative process can override those responses allowing to appropriately adjust one’s decisions or behavior (Rand at al., 2016). Heuristics in social interactions might be based on the perceptions of similarity between the self and others. Individuals may perceive themselves to be similar to others along social categorization and identity, physical appearance, and underlying psychological features such as attitudes, values, opinions, and personality traits. People tend to use heuristics while making inferences about social situations to process rapidly available information. Social heuristics can impact the individual’s perceptions of social roles by adhering to certain cultural norms or biases related to gender roles, belonging to social groups, race, or political parties, etc. This influence might lead to the development of schemas that individuals apply to categorize people or expect certain behaviors or emotions.

Individuals are susceptible to shortcuts that might be based on the likability or perceived credibility of the person engaged in the social interaction or on the individual’s emotions rather than on the reliable evidence (Jones, 2013). There is another commonly employed shortcut in social settings called mind reading which is based on the assumption that the individual knows what the other person might say and jumps to conclusions shortcutting the critical evaluation process. These cognitive processes lead to decision-making shortcuts that may create errors (Fiske & Taylor, 2017). Individuals might be distracted by the exterior characteristics of the presented problem (the frame) and fail to recognize the underling structure of the problem which can have a major effect on their decision. Fiske and Taylor (2017) stated that a common frame is the gains or losses that might result from the individual’s decision. The individual might take chances when the alternatives are presented in terms of gains, but he or she might be more cautious when the alternatives are phrased in terms of losses. Generally, people tend to use these functions in domains where they have significant amount of experience or practice and had the opportunity test their strategies.

Psychometrically Sound Measures

Human social functioning is a quite complex concept and takes for consideration social skills, behavior, and cognitive functioning taking place during social interactions. This social functioning involves the integration of social cognition, social attention, and social heuristics which are advanced based on the biological endowment and socio-behavioral development. Research of cognitive functioning might be challenging as it encompasses, among others, human inferences affected by the use of deliberate or automatic processes, including heuristics and shortcuts to make decisions or judgments in a complex and frequently swiftly changing social environment (Fiske & Taylor, 2017).

Generally, to study the relationship of the self and the social environment, researchers can utilize two types of data: (a) quantitative, information can be measured and written down with numbers, and (b) qualitative containing evidence about qualities that cannot be mathematically (Griffin, 2004). A quantitative study involving social cognition, social attention, and social heuristics should include the description of how each objective of the research will be achieved, describe the study population and sampling as well as methods used to collect data. In this type of study, to collect data, the researcher may utilize a whole array of standard psychological scales with established reliability and validity as well as tests used in neuropsychological assessments evaluating cognitive and personality functioning that utilize high-resolution structural and functioning imaging of the brain (Harvey, 2012). After collecting and describing data, the researcher needs to process and analyze the data using mathematical techniques and computer software to manipulate the data and then interpret the results. 

Mason (2002) stated that through qualitative methods, researchers can also explore a wide spectrum of dimensions of the social world, including the landscape of everyday life, the understandings of different cognitive phenomena, experiences and imaginations of research subjects as well as social processes and relationship functions, and their meaning or significance. Qualitative studies are characterized by in-depth interviews, focus groups, self-reports, and case studies that are needed to better understand interactions of the self with the social environment through different cognitive processes (Sullivan & Sargent, 2011). Quantitative and qualitative research designs are fundamentally different because qualitative data contain information about qualities that cannot actually be measured from the statistical stand point. Despite of these fundamental differences it can be argued that both approaches may produce quality data by using psychometrically sound measures adhering to concepts of reliability and validity because the goal of finding conceivable and credible outcome explanations remains the paramount of all research.

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