Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Part 1: Basic Concepts in Social Cognition
Chapter 2: Dual Modes in Social Cognition
Chapter 3: Attention and Encoding
Chapter 4: Representation in Memory
Part 2: Understanding Individual Selves and Others
Chapter 5: Self in Social Cognition
Chapter 6: Attribution processes
Chapter 7: Heuristics and Shortcuts: Efficiency in Inference and Decision Making
Chapter 8: Accuracy and Efficiency in Social Interference
Part 3: Making Sense of Society
Chapter 9: Cognitive Structures of Attitudes
Chapter 10: Cognitive Processing of Attitudes
Chapter 11: Stereotyping: Cognition and Bias
Chapter 12: Prejudice: Interplay of Cognitive and Affective Biases
Part 4: Beyond Social Cognition: Affect and Behavior
Chapter 13: From Social Cognition to Affect
Chapter 14: From Affect to Social Cognition
Chapter 15: Behaviour and Cognition

About the Author

Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor, Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University (Ph.D., Harvard University; honorary doctorates, Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands; Universität Basel, Switzerland; Universidad de Granada, Spain). She attended Harvard/Radcliffe College, majoring in Social Relations, where she met her graduate advisor and lifelong collaborator, Shelley Taylor. After her doctorate in social psychology, she worked at Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before moving to Princeton in 2000.

She investigates social cognition, especially cognitive stereotypes and emotional prejudices, at cultural, interpersonal, and neural levels. Author of about 400 articles and chapters, she is most known for work on social cognition, theories and research on how people think about each other: the continuum model of impression formation, the power-as-control theory, the ambivalent sexism theory, and the stereotype content model (SCM).

Her current SCM work focuses on the two fundamental dimensions of social cognition, perceived warmth (friendly, trustworthy) and perceived competence (capable, assertive). Upstream, perceived social structure predicts these stereotypes (cooperation-competition predicts warmth; status predicts competence). Downstream, specific emotions follow each warmth-x-competence quadrant (pride, disgust, envy, pity) and predict specific behaviors (active and passive help or harm). Using representative sample surveys, lab experiments, and neuro-imaging, Fiske lab has focused on varieties of dehumanization predicted by the SCM: dehumanizing allegedly disgusting homeless people, Schadenfreude toward the enviable rich, as well as paternalistic pity and prescriptive prejudices toward older people, disabled people, and women in traditional roles. Current work uses natural language analyses to explore spontaneous descriptions of others. Adversarial collaborations on research and adversarial alignments on theory are current projects to advance her science.

The U.S. Supreme Court cited her gender-bias testimony, and she testified before President Clinton’s Race Initiative Advisory Board. These influenced her edited volume, Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom. Currently an editor of the Annual Review of Psychology, PNAS, Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and Handbook of Social Psychology, she has written the upper-level texts Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology (4/e) and Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture 6/e). She also co-wrote The Human Brand: How We Relate to People, Products, and Companies, which applies her models to how people perceive corporations. Her general-interest book, funded by a Guggenheim and the Russell Sage Foundation, is Envy Up and Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us.

She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2020, she and Shelley Taylor shared the, Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences, BBVA Foundation, Bilbao, Spain, for the 1984 publication of Social Cognition, all editions citation total 19,000. She has served as President of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), President of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, as well as its FABBS Foundation, and President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. She has won Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awards from APA, SPSP, and SESP. Because it takes a village, her many graduate students and lab alumni conspired for her to win Princeton’s Graduate Mentoring Award. She is grateful to be the only person so far to have won the three APS Awards: James (basic science), Cattell (applied science), and Mentoring.

 

 

Shelley E. Taylor is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research examines the psychological and social origins and moderators of psychological and biological responses to stress and their health consequences. She focuses especially on socioemotional resources, including optimism, mastery, self-esteem, and social support, and the genetic, early environmental, and neural bases of these resources. 

Reviews

Since the very first edition, Social Cognition has been the undisputed bible of the field, and this new edition is the best one yet. Insightful, authoritative, and beautifully written by two of the field’s most eminent researchers, it is an indispensable guide for students and scientists alike. The book that came first remains first.
*Daniel Gilbert*

Generations of researchers in social psychology have been schooled by Fiske & Taylor’s Social Cognition; their framing of the field is in our collective DNA. The Third Edition wonderfully enhances this tradition and is a reminder that Social Cognition is a must read for scholars in psychological science and beyond who seek to understand the rich dynamics of everyday life.
*Eugene Borgida*

Two decades ago, as an undergraduate, the first edition of the Fiske & Taylor lured me into the field of Social Cognition. It’s been a steady companion ever since, allowing me to check what ‘The Bible’ had to say about pretty much anything I wanted to know about how the social mind works. Just as its predecessors, this new edition is bound to be the standard reference for the field.
*Thomas Mussweiler*

Social Cognition has revealed as one of the most prolific areas of social psychology, and as a promising field of intersection with other disciplines. Since its very first edition, Social Cognition has been the reference book in this field. Fiske and Taylor, two of the field′s most eminent researchers, show that it is perfectly possible to approach a topic that is broad and difficult without losing rigor or depth.
*Miguel Moya*

Social Cognition carefully explains and clearly organizes different approaches and models that address the way we think of people – as different from objects. Fiske and Taylor clarify how classic studies and early theories have developed into our current understanding of social cognition. The book is an invaluable resource, cleverly structured to provide easy access to very complex phenomena. It incorporates the most recent and sophisticated research in cognitive neuroscience, while also illustrating how these basic mechanisms are relevant to real world issues and intercultural differences.  This new edition of the classic textbook is indispensable for all interested in the way we consider ourselves and others.
*Naomi Ellemers*

Fiske and Taylor has long been the go-to reference book for the field of social cognition. The new edition is as thorough, smart, and current as ever.
*Timothy D. Wilson*