Introduction to Social Cognition

Gordon B. Moskowitz, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University. He has served as Director of Lehigh’s Cognitive Science Program and Chair of the Department of Psychology. He served two terms on the executive committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, has hosted the Society's conference twice, and annually co-organizes the preeminent social cognition conference, the Person Memory Interest Group. He has held editorial positions for Social and Personality Psychology Compass, as well as for the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and sits on the editorial board for Motivation Science and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Dr. Moskowitz conducts research at the intersection of motivation, implicit bias, and social cognition. His work spans the topics of proactive control, impression formation, stereotyping, minority influence, bias reduction interventions, perspective taking, egalitarianism, self-regulation, impression updating, ambivalence, and backlash. His research program more recently has examined bias in the practice of medicine and the reduction of disparities in health and health care.

• 1. Thinking Is for Action (Purposeful), So We Make Meaning from Chaos2. We Create Internal Mental Representations of External Reality3. Self-Report Is Unreliable Because Cognition Is Often Automatic4. We Can Know What People Think Even When They Don’t Know5. First Impressions Are “Sticky” and Difficult to Update6. First Impressions Can Be Implicit, Making Them Even More Persistent7. We Follow Rules When Asking “Why?,” Acting Like Intuitive Scientists8. Biases Are Common and Arise from Normal Cognitive Processes9. Biases Are Common and Are Often Motivational in Nature10. Beyond the Information Given: Responding Guided by Priming11. Prejudice and Stereotyping12. Cognitive Processing Is Flexible, and Processing Types Dissociable13. The Updating of Impressions Is Promoted by Diagnostic Stimuli and One’s GoalsReferencesAuthor IndexSubject Index

"Moskowitz has done a masterful job of distilling the most important topics in social cognition research into clear questions and propositions. The organization of the book is sensible and inviting to the novice, providing an approachable framework for thinking about social cognition. As with all of Moskowitz’s work, the book is thorough and of the highest level of scholarship. Filling an important need, this text will be appreciated by instructors and students alike."--Jeffrey W. Sherman, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis"Moskowitz offers a comprehensive go-to guide for students who are new to the social-cognitive perspective or seek an engaging, inclusive refresher. He describes the 'buried treasures' of social cognition--the foundational, classic studies that have shaped the field, including studies that do not typically show up in reviews--and ties in cutting-edge contemporary scholarship. Moskowitz presents a full and rich picture of where the field is now and where it is going. I will assign this text in my small advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level seminar courses as required reading for class discussions."--Emily Balcetis, PhD, Department of Psychology, New York University"Providing a comprehensive review of the field, this book adeptly illustrates how researchers came to theorize about and empirically test social cognition. Chapters highlight theories and findings from several perspectives and from a diverse range of topics and researchers. The anecdotes, personal narratives, and behind-the-curtain stories woven throughout the text are a nice touch that will draw students into researchers’ laboratories and theory-building processes. This is the perfect introduction to social cognition following an introductory social psychology or cognitive psychology course."--Valerie Jones Taylor, PhD, Department of Psychology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-