Empiricism and social reality: Can cognitive science be socialized?

Several areas of research within social psychology depend on assumptions about underlying cognitive processes. These assumptions have not typically been examined from the perspective of cognitive science. Two theoretical constructs, the self and attitudes, are specifically considered. In contrast to earlier models of symbolic representation and rationalistic decision-making, a cognitive science perspective allows these to be viewed as habits or patterns of thought and behaviour that depend on learnt associations between multiple features of people's experience. The observation that individuals can display different characteristics and attitudes in different stituations suggests the importance of context-dependent learning, resulting in multiple attractors. Such findings are located within the intellectual tradition of empiricism, and argue for the dependence of social cognitions on social reality.