1st Edition

Social Cognition Understanding Self and Others

By Gordon B. Moskowitz Copyright 2004

    An ideal text for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, this accessible yet authoritative volume examines how people come to know themselves and understand the behavior of others. Core social-psychological questions are addressed as students gain an understanding of the mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, remembering, thinking about, and responding to the people in our social world. Particular attention is given to how we know what we know: the often hidden ways in which our perceptions are shaped by contextual factors and personal and cultural biases. While the text's coverage is sophisticated and comprehensive, synthesizing decades of research in this dynamic field, every chapter brings theories and findings down to earth with lively, easy-to-grasp examples.

    Introduction: What Does It Mean to Know Something?
    1. Naive Realism: The Construction of Reality in the Pursuit of Social Knowledge
    2. Automaticity and Control
    3. Categories and Category Structure: Person Memory Informs Impression Formation Processes
    4. On Schemas and Cognitive Misers: Mental Representation as the Building Blocks of Impressions
    5. Dual-Process Models
    6. Attribution
    7. Correspondence Bias and Spontaneous Trait Inference
    8. Shortcoming and Biases in Person Perception
    9. On Perceptual Readiness: Chronic Sources of Judgmental Influence
    10. Temporary Accessibility/Priming Effects: Assimilation and Contrast in Impression Formation
    11. Stereotypes and Expectancies
    12. Control of Stereotypes and Expectancies
    13. From the Intra- to the Interpersonal: Bridging the Gap from Cognition to Behavior

    Biography

    Gordon B. Moskowitz, PhD, was drawn to social psychology as an undergraduate at McGill University. He received his PhD from New York University in 1993. While at NYU, he developed interests in impression formation, automaticity, minority influence, accessibility effects, stereotypes, and the effects of goals on each of these processes. Following graduate training, Dr. Moskowitz did a year of postdoctoral study at Max Planck Institute in Munich. After a year as a faculty member at the University of Konstanz, he decided to return to the United States and moved to Princeton University, where he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology from 1994 to 2001. In the fall of 2001 Dr. Moskowitz moved to Lehigh University, where he is now Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. In addition to his research presented in journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Dr. Moskowitz has edited a book titled Cognitive Social Psychology, has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his research on the control of stereotyping.

    Gordon Moskowitz is one of the leaders of the next generation of social cognition researchers, a highly respected researcher with an eye always on the direction and future of the field. In this valuable book, Moskowitz not only brings the reader up to speed on the brief but intensely productive history of social cognition, he also integrates the important subareas of the field into a compelling and pleasing whole.--John A. Bargh, PhD, Department of Psychology, Yale University

    Turn randomly to a page in Moskowitz's Social Cognition and you'll be impressed by the clear writing, the carefully selected mix of classic and cutting-edge studies, and the charmingly eclectic range of illuminating examples and illustrations. Read longer and your appreciation will grow, for this book provides a smart, integrative, and intellectually satisfying exploration of processes of the social mind. What a rare find: a book that will appeal as much to undergraduate and graduate students as it will to the professors who assign it to them!--Steven Neuberg, PhD, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University

    This book is a scholarly tour de force. Finally, we have a book that collects all the diverse research on social cognition and person perception in one place. Utterly comprehensive, the book covers fundamental issues in social cognition, with a particular emphasis on self-, other-, and group-perception, integrating all into a common framework. This book should become the bible of social cognition and person perception research. It is broad and deep, and could be used successfully in classes ranging from large undergraduate lecture courses to small graduate seminars.--Jeffrey Sherman, PhD, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University

    This book is a scholarly tour de force. Finally, we have a book that collects all the diverse research on social cognition and person perception in one place. Utterly comprehensive, the book covers fundamental issues in social cognition, with a particular emphasis on self-, other-, and group-perception, integrating all into a common framework. This book should become the bible of social cognition and person perception research. It is broad and deep, and could be used successfully in classes ranging from large undergraduate lecture courses to small graduate seminars.
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