The Role of Cognitive Process in Social Interaction

Abstract

This paper reports on a series of studies designed to investigate the hypothesis that the success of a social interaction is function of the compatibility among the participants in complexity or degree of differentiation of their cognitive structure. Patient-therapist cognitive compatibility is shown to predict the success of treatment outcome. Its role in the teacher-student relationship in mental health training is more complex: the teacher's cognitive structure appearing to be a primary variable. In community action groups, cognitive compatibility determines the nature and type of decisions or behaviors carried out by the group. The resarch emphasizes the need for increased familiarity with cognitive research among social psychiatrists.

Social skills and the perception of interaction episodes

“…It appears thus that social skills are indeed significantly related to the way an individual perceives social episodes. A person's ability to effectively deal with a complex and subtle social environment is likely to depend not only on his/her communicative performance but, more importantly, on his/her ability to develop a sufficiently differentiated and accurate cognitive representation of that environment (Carr & Posthuma, 1975;Forgas, 1981). In our sample, the low skilled group clearly failed to develop such a representation of episodes, being dominated by the social anxiety aspect of episodes, and paying little or no attention to the potential rewardingness (evaluation) and involvement or intensity which is implied by various interactions.…”