Advances in Social Cognition Research

Research on social cognition is largely comprised of self-reported judgments and impressions about internal and external information. Both verbal and nonverbal behaviors are subject to stylistic biases in how people express themselves, often confounding the ability to reliably measure (non-communicative) cognitive processes and mechanisms. This book begins by discussing the gender differences and ethnicity-related differences in communicative styles and their potential to influence basic findings in social psychological studies. It then continues to discuss the social cognition, everyday problems and working capacity in persons with schizophrenia; the mental representation of person descriptions; causes, experience and outcomes of anger; rumination, construal, and emotion perception in depression; the influence of language complexity and style of perceived self-reflection and truthfulness; and universal and cultural processes in theory of mind (ToM) development.