Navigating the Social World

Navigating the Social World

People learn about the environment, including their social world, through a process known as social cognition. Imitation, emulation and mimicry are part of a social mechanism relating conspecifics among many species. Prosocial behaviour has been discussed by many social scientists and diverse accounts have emerged. For example, from a sociological perspective, individuals benefit from adhering to societal norms. Likewise, social psychologists have demonstrated that adherence to group norms and conformity are similarly important for human beings. Alternatively, other species learn from their conspecifics such information as the location of food, and various species from monkeys to fish to bees, have been shown to learn information from their social environment or by observing others.

Knowledge gained from our social world includes which plants are comestible or poisonous. Illustration: Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

A fundamental mechanism through which humans learn about others is expression of emotions. Indeed, social psychologists argue that the five basic emotions, namely joy, anger, fear, surprise and disgust are expressed similarly across cultures and, therefore, recognized worldwide. By the same token, emotional contagion refers to a state where the observer begins to feel the emotion of the observed, a prerequisite for empathy. Furthermore, mirror neurons fire in both cases when an action is performed and when an action being performed is observed. The latter phenomenon further adds credibility to the interconnectedness of the human species to each other. Consequently, social withdrawal and willing social isolation is a symptom of many mental illnesses, as defined by the DSM-5 published by the APA (American Psychiatric Association).

Moreover, we learn about our own group cohesion and the out group from observing our parents interacting with members of the two groups. Interestingly, at around age eight, children begin to model their behaviour less on their parents and more on perceived experts. Also, awareness into the process of taking another’s perspective, which requires a great deal of cognitive effort, starts as early as between the ages of two and four. However, processes such as mentalizing or Theory of Mind (ToM) are absent in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).