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1. Cognition refers to the process of human activity, the main content of which is the reflection of objective reality resulted in obtaining of new knowledge about the world. The main feature of social cognition as a form of cognitive activity is the coincidence of the subject and object of knowledge. In the course of social knowledge society cognizes and experiences itself. This coincidence of subject and object of knowledge has an enormous impact on both the process of cognition and its results. The resulting social knowledge is always associated with the interests of individuals - the subjects of knowledge, and this fact explains the presence of many different, often opposing conclusions and assessments arising in the study of the same social phenomena. In contrast to the philosophical tradition of using the term “heuristics”, in the psychology of social cognition it refers to the reduction or the arbitrary rule applied by subjects of cognition in order to make a judgment based on inadequate or ambiguous information (Bardone, 2011, p. 59). Instead of getting full reflection of the perceived object, understanding all its connections and relationships, and processing all the available information, the heuristics are used for making quick decisions and coming up with solutions, based on the arbitrarily formulated rules. Among the most valuable heuristics in the social cognition bandwagon effect, the effect of mass perception should be mentioned. Society, “other people” influence one’s cognition and decision making more than one usually thinks. It leads to the bandwagon effect (Bardone, 2011, pp. 42-45) when decisions are made according to the choice of crowd or socially significant individuals. It might be advantageous for the individual, if, for example, bandwagon effect makes him or her following the international trend of healthy lifestyle, but it can be harmful and even dangerous if this effect leads to fascism, racism, hatred of the particular social group, etc. Another example of heuristic in terms of social cognition is using the stereotypes. People tend to attribute members of specific social group with particular characteristics. These stereotypes might be as follows: cashier in supermarket is less educated than manager, blonds are less smart than brunettes, Asians are better in maths than Europeans, politicians shouldn’t be trusted etc. Such stereotypes are harmful for social development as they mark people by their groups, not by their individual characteristics. At the same time such stereotypes might be used for self-protection when, for example, returning late at night woman instinctively sits in the empty wagon with another woman than with man, considering woman as more safe companion, without knowing any individual traits of two mentioned people. The use of heuristics to a large extent makes life easier, it allows using the "condensed" strategy, but at the same time limits the amount of information that is possible to be used in the particular situation. With the usage of any heuristics much of the information is simply lost. Nevertheless, it happens in the process of cognition in the everyday reality with every ordinary person and psychology of social cognition merely states this fact.
2. The elements of our cognitive world don’t exist in the form of some kind of chaotic, fragmented totality. Rather than that, they are linked to each other in the structures of higher order, which in the social cognition theories are mostly called “schemas”. Schemas shouldn’t be seen as totally new concept, as they have many synonyms and close terms such as: stereotypes, norms, values, and the implicit theory of personality. Theorists distinguish the following types of schemas: person schemas, role schemas, scripts, content-free schemas and self-schemas (Vaughan, Hogg, 2013, p. 46). Schemas can be defined as mental structures which are used by individual to organise knowledge about social world. When schemas are activated they are followed by individuals almost unconsciously, even if it implies negative behaviour towards others without any particular reason (Mynhardt, Baron, 2009, p. 2). Perseverance effect occurs when individuals encounter contradictory information but have tendency to hold on to their schemas (Foong Khong, 1992, p. 39). Schemas stay persistent to almost any external influence even if new information compromises information that triggered the activation of particular schema. If individual is presented with some contradictory information schema blocks it, while if person is presented with minor and subjective information which confirms the schema, individual absorbs it as significant and objective, strengthening schema this way and making it even more persistent and reluctant to change. Such information filtering leads to the schemas self-fulfilment.
References
Bardone, E. (2011). Seeking chances: From biased rationality to distributed cognition. New York: cnfnSpringer Science & Business Media.
Foong Khong, Y. (1993). Analogies at war: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam decisions of 1965. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Vaughan, G. M., Hogg, A. M. (2013). Social psychology. Pearson Australia: Pearson Higher Education AU.
