Social cognition is responsible, among other functions, for as human beings we perceive our own emotions and those of others, we can understand what others think in certain situations; let’s mentally evaluate interpersonal interactions; and above all to carry out appropriate social actions within a certain environment. It is because of these characteristics so closely linked to the human being that special attention is currently paid to this processing, its evaluation and possible intervention; giving rise to future research especially in the area of mental health.
Frontal lobe and its functions
As an explanatory and functional way, we can locate social cognition among one of the functions of the frontal lobe; which is made up of the orbital, medial and dorsolateral areas. It is where executive functions and various aspects of human behavior are located. It is from this area where psychological processes are planned, controlled and regulated; Processes can be coordinated and selected and different options can be chosen, in terms of the different possible behaviors for solving the same problem. We could locate in this system the influence of motivations and interests to reach a certain goal. That is to say: the integrative system of the frontal lobe is where, in a pedagogical way, we can find the complex forms of the human being, his thoughts and his behaviors (Lázaro & Solís, 2008).
The frontal lobe can be considered the “executive center of the brain”, therefore a failure in this system or its alteration has high consequences in behavior, emotion regulation and metacognition; That is, executive functions (planning, behavioral control, mental flexibility, working memory, mentalization, fluidity, social behavior and social cognition) are altered or decreased. We find these difficulties exacerbated in some pathologies such as schizophrenia (Lázaro & Solís, 2008).
Looking for a specific definition
Within the literature we can find several definitions of social cognition (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006):
- “Processes involved in how people think about themselves, other people, social situations, and interactions.”
- “Set of mental operations that underlie social interactions, and that include the processes involved in the perception, interpretation, and generation of responses to the intentions, dispositions, and behaviors of others.”
- “Processes and functions that allow the person to understand, act and benefit from the interpersonal world.”
The areas and functions that we find within what we classify as social cognition are: emotional processing (how we perceive emotions and recognize them, for example the basic emotions according to the faces we see), the theory of mind or also called empathy. cognitive (making inferences about mental states), social perception (the evaluation we make of social stimuli) and attributional style (ability to make positive or negative evaluations of a certain event or situation) (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006).
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Why should we pay special attention to its deficit?
Currently this phenomenon is becoming a focus of interest, given that it is a variable that alters the social functioning of patients with pathologies and new interventions have been developed that reduce the alterations; improving the quality of life of people, their families and integration into the community (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006).
In the particular case of schizophrenia, social behavior and behavioral problems are characteristic; The more of these that occur, the disease worsens and the rate of relapses and dysregulation increases. There is a relationship between impairment in social cognition and social or community behavior that is being increasingly studied; resulting in forms of intervention that improve said area (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006).
How do we assess social cognition?
Currently there are various ways to evaluate social cognition to then achieve an appropriate intervention and be able to measure the changes that are achieved during and after treatment. We will name some of the evaluation methods (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006):
- Interpersonal Perception Task: has 30 videos of social interaction situations. Evaluates social status, intimacy, kinship, competition and deception. It also measures the perception of non-verbal aspects, facial expression and body language.
- Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test: originally designed to measure emotional intelligence, defined as the ability to perceive emotions and feelings. There are 141 items to evaluate how the person solves emotional problems.
- Pictures of Facial Affect: The perception of emotions is evaluated through facial expression in 110 photographs.
- The story of Rally and Anne and Cigarettes in conjunction with the stories of Ice-Cream Van store and Burglar Store are used to evaluate theory of mind in all difficulties.
Although these instruments are currently used, they have not been validated for pathologies such as schizophrenia and autism; being a pending debt for future research.
Let’s talk about intervention
Having specified where we find the deficit and how to evaluate it, we must now dedicate ourselves to interventions that improve the functioning of social cognition. There are specific interventions that focus on emotion recognition, such as Training of Affect Recognition; others that focus on the perception of emotions such as the program Emotion Management Training; There are programs that combine cognitive and social functioning in interventions, such as Integrated Psychological Therapy and Social skills programs are also carried out to re-educate and learn to resolve social situations. (Ruiz, Garcia & Fuentes, 2006).
To conclude, even the definition of social cognition and its evaluation in pathologies has not reached a consensus. We do know that it is a topic that deserves special attention and study, given that in the case of a deficit in the area, timely interventions can solve many behavioral problems and avoid relapses in the case of pathologies. These interventions, in addition to helping the patient, also benefit the family members and the social context in which the patient is inserted.
Bibliography
Lázaro, JCF, & Solís, FO (2008). Neuropsychology of frontal lobes, executive functions and human behavior. Neuropsychology, Neuropsychiatry and Neurosciences Magazine, 8(1), 47-58.
RUIZ-RUIZ, JC, GARCÍA-FERRER, S., & FUENTES-DURÁ, I. (2006). The relevance of social cognition in schizophrenia. psychology notes, 24(1-3), 137-155.