Situated Social Cognition

南非祖鲁族有一句话叫“umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”(人是通过人来的人)。然而，这不仅仅是一句谚语，因为它构成了我研究心理学的基础。通过研究我们的非人类灵长类近亲与我们自己的社会行为，我们可以发现其他人的行为是如何帮助塑造他们生活的社会世界的。灵长类动物的强烈社会性是其决定性特征之一，被认为塑造了大脑的大小和结构，以及我们在世界上思考和行动的特殊方式。这一领域的研究通常认为社会认知是一个抽象的、无实体的过程，只发生在大脑内部。然而，神经生物学、机器人学和认知科学最近的研究强调，与世界以及与其他个人的身体接触，可以而且应该被视为任何认知过程的一部分。这反过来意味着，认知可以被认为是可见的、公共的和社会的，而不是简单的看不见、隐藏和私人。当我们观察其他动物随着时间推移的行为模式时，我们可以看到其他动物的精神活动在我们面前展开。以自然社会环境中的行为为重点，这里的目的是测试关于社会互动如何建立和塑造生活史过程、认知发展和社会生活的方式的预测，并评估情绪和感知机制对社会理解和群体结构的影响。通过这种方式，我们可以探索生活在整个生命周期中的各种“社会小环境”如何影响心理功能，同时强调人类和非人类灵长类动物之间有趣的相似之处，并准确指出一些同样有趣的差异可能存在的地方。通过挑战灵长类动物长期持有的认知和社会化范式，这项工作为一种新的认知和社会心理学铺平了道路，有可能通过更多地了解驾驭我们复杂的社会环境所需的技能来增强个人的社会体验。

The Zulu people of South Africa have a saying "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" (A person is a person through people"). This is more than just a proverb, however, as it forms the bedrock of my approach to the study of psychology. By investigating the social behavior of our non-human primate cousins in relation to our own, we can discover how the actions of others help shape the social worlds in which they live. The intensely social nature of primate life is one of its defining characterisics, and is thought to have shaped both the size and structure of the brain, and the particular ways in which we think and act in the world. Research in this area has usually considered social cognition to be an abstract, 'disembodied' process that take places solely inside the head. Recent work in neurobiology, robotics and cognitive science, however, emphasizes that physical, bodily engagement with the world, and with other individuals, can and should be considered as part and parcel of any cognitive process.This, in turn, means that cognition can be considered as visible, public and social, and not simply as invisible, hidden and private. We can see the mental activity of other animals roll out in front of us, as we observe their patterns of behaviour over time. With a focus on behaviour in its natural social setting, the aim here is to test predictions regarding the manner in which social interactions both scaffold and shape life history processes, cognitive development and social life, and assess the influence of emotional and perceptual mechanisms on social understanding and group structure. In this way, we can explore how the various kinds of 'social niches' inhabited throughout the lifespan influence psychological functioning, as well as highlight both the interesting similarities between human and non-human primates, and pinpointing where some of the equally interesting differences may lie. By challenging long-held paradigms about cognition and socialization in primates, this work paves the way for a new kind of cognitive and social psychology, with the potential to enhance individual social experience by understanding more about the skills needed to navigate our complex social landscapes