Thinking About the Social World

Acting in and understanding the social world require, among other things, the process of abstraction. Abstraction broadens mental horizons, integrates new experiences, and allows communication with other people. In this course we will discuss the different ways in which abstraction has been defined in the literature and look into some surprising implications of abstraction for people’s understanding of, and actions in, the social world. This is a mid-level seminar for students with introductory background to psychology, cognitive science, or cognitive neuroscience.