Can social interaction constitute social cognition?

Authors

Hanne De Jaegher, University of Heidelberg
Ezequiel Di Paolo, University of The Basque Country
Shaun Gallagher, University of Central Florida

RIS ID

88876

Publication Details

De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E. and Gallagher, S. (2010). Can social interaction constitute social cognition?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14 (10), 441-447.

Abstract

An important shift is taking place in social cognition research, away from a focus on the individual mind and toward embodied and participatory aspects of social understanding. Empirical results already imply that social cognition is not reducible to the workings of individual cognitive mechanisms. To galvanize this interactive turn, we provide an operational definition of social interaction and distinguish the different explanatory roles – contextual, enabling and constitutive – it can play in social cognition. We show that interactive processes are more than a context for social cognition: they can complement and even replace individual mechanisms. This new explanatory power of social interaction can push the field forward by expanding the possibilities of scientific explanation beyond the individual.