Social Learning of Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Social learning is the process of learning through social means such as observation, or instruction, and is an efficient process for learning for both human and non-human animals (Golkar, Castro, & Olsson, 2014). The literature on social learning covers a wide array of research. . However, there is growing work being done in that space where social and cognitive psychology connect. This work covers varied cognitive processes such as decision making (Fuqua & Newman, 1994), problem solving (Fessler, 2006; Lin et al., 2020), and cognitive susceptibility to social structures (Bigler & Liben, 2007; Gelman et al., 2004; Oostenbroek & Over, 2016; Rhodes et al., 2012). This paper attempts to present the literature on social learning and how it relates to cognitive processes, and then proposes a novel research study designed to investigate the links between social learning and cognitive processes in a problem-solving task.

Social learning of cognitive strategies

Social learning is the process of learning through social means such as observation, or instruction, and is an efficient process for learning for both human and non-human animals (Golkar, Castro, & Olsson, 2014). The literature on social learning covers a wide array of research. For instance, research on social learning provides evidence that fear responses to things such as certain sounds, shapes, or situations is socially learned through observation and instruction in both human and non-human animals (Cook et al., 1985; Hygge & Ohman, 1978; Olsson & Phelps, 2004; Jeon et al., 2010; Kavaliers, Colwell, & Choleris, 2005). Further, social learning has been expanded upon to include not only evolutionary systems such as fear responses, but also group processes such as the ingroup vs outgroup dynamic of social categorization. Research on this topic has found that ingroup members are taken more seriously and are learned from better than outgroup members (Golkar, Castro, & Olsson, 2014).

Cognitive psychology is a vast field covering many different topics as well. From language to decision making to memory and beyond, cognitive psychology and the cognitive processes that it studies is a rich field for research and application. However, one thing that cognitive psychology often overlooks, is the value of integrating cognitive process research with social psychological theory. How does social identity relate to decision making and language? How does social learning affect problem-solving and memory? These are but some of the questions that can be investigated when combining social psychological theory with cognitive psychological processes. However, there is growing work being done in that space where social and cognitive psychology connect. This work covers varied cognitive processes such as decision making (Fuqua & Newman, 1994), problem solving (Fessler, 2006; Lin et al., 2020), and cognitive susceptibility to social structures (Bigler & Liben, 2007; Gelman et al., 2004; Oostenbroek & Over, 2016; Rhodes et al., 2012).

The current paper will attempt to establish a link between social learning and cognitive processes. After examining the current work and findings on social learning and how it relates to cognitive processes, this paper will provide a proposal of research that can investigate the relationship between social learning and cognitive processes. Finally, the expected results of that research and a discussion of potential outcomes of that research will conclude the paper.

Social Learning

As mentioned before, social learning is the process of learning through social means such as observation, or instruction, and is an efficient process for learning used by both human and non-human animals (Golkar, Castro, & Olsson, 2014). The literature on social learning covers a wide array of research and so the approaches to social learning are just as vast. For instance, Heyes (2012) describes social learning as both a social and asocial mechanism that is only social when learning is observed from others. For Heyes, social learning mechanisms occur both in social environments as well as when the human or animal is alone. Essentially, Heyes argues that learning of any kind is continuous and becomes “social” only when the inputs of that learning are received from others.

The literature on social learning is vast and contains many different areas of investigation. For instance, social learning originates from Bandura’s work on why human beings behave the way that they do. In Bandura’s (1977) work on Social Learning, he reviewed the past theoretical ideas about learning and modelling behaviors. His review of both past works, and of his own work, ends with a summary of social learning theory which Bandura describes as a form of social modelling in which observations lead to reenactment of the behaviors observed. This is the classic conceptualization of social learning theory and is the most readily accepted definition of what social learning is and can be used for.

However, social learning does not stop at the simple definition of theoretical review. Much work since Bandura’s initial conceptualization of social learning theory has sought to expand the theory and apply it to new contexts, times, and ideas. For instance, social learning is not just a result of direct, in-person observation. Work by Nodeland and Morris (2018) has found that social learning can occur in online environments as well. They sought to expand the social learning theory literature by investigating whether social learning can apply to cyber offending (e.g., cyber bullying). Their results demonstrated evidence that social learning play a direct role in the intentions to cyber offend and cyber offending behaviors.

Cyber crime and cyber offending behaviors are not the only expansion of social learning theory. Social learning theory has also been applied to the organizational structures of businesses, corporations, and other large organizations. Xie et al. (2019) notes that the organizational psychology literature holds the “trickle-down” model is the go-to for understanding how supervisor experiences affect and shape the experiences and behaviors of their subordinates. Xie et al. investigated this model through a lens of social learning theory and found that subordinates view and imitate the experiences of their supervisors. Further, the authors note that social learning theory is the foundation of the organizational trickle-down model, but the direct role-modelling influences posed by social learning theory has often failed to make an appearance in the research literature. The article concludes by explaining that social learning theory accounts for much of the organizational phenomena of interest to organizational researchers, especially those trying to understand the social modelling of behaviors from supervisors to subordinates.

Social learning theory also includes work done in the realm of health behaviors. Norman and Ford (2015) notes that health behaviors amongst children, specifically drug use, is largely affected by social learning. Their analysis showed that children who use drugs (in their study specifically ecstasy) are much more likely to use if they have favorable attitudes toward substance use, peers who use, and parents and peers who condone use. Further, adolescents with strong ties to family and/or school were much less likely to consume ecstasy in comparison to adolescents with weaker ties in these areas. This research provides direct evidence that social learning is not just an adaptive social concept, but also that it has direct links to real health outcomes and health behaviors.

Further work on social learning attempts to describe the effects of social learning on things such as gang affiliation (Tolle, 2017) and police brutality (Chappell & Piquero, 2004). Evidence shows that the reinforcing capacity of social structures (such as gang affiliations or police brotherhood) are strong factors that contribute towards powerful social learning affects in gang violence, police brutality, and behaviors coinciding with these two social structures.

To summarize, social learning is vast field, with and in-depth literature on many aspects of social learning and how it relates to topics from social structures to health behaviors. One such specific area however is how social learning relates to the learning of cognitive processes and strategies.

Social learning of cognitive processes

Heyes (2012) provides a review of social learning and notes that social learning is both social and asocial. Learning can be done in solitude or in the presence of others, and many behaviors that we learn socially can also be obtained asocially. Heyes notes that one such aspect of learning is the adoption of cognitive processes and strategies, and how these processes and strategies coincide with social learning, and how this body of work is often overlooked due to assumptions about the highly specific nature of social learning of cognitive concepts. However, these assumptions have been challenged in recent years leading to much more work on the subject. Further, Halpern (1997) also notes that some learning is both social and biological, and as such, any investigation from one view or the other is often skewed and incomplete. Halpern notes that learning mechanisms that are biological in nature are often affected by social contexts, and that social learning contexts can be affected by biological processes of learning, such as the cognitive processes, or the biological predispositions to learning certain things.

Learning clearly has a link to cognitive processes and cognitive psychology whether it be through social learning or asocial learning. Fessler (2006) provides an example of cognitive learning as it relates to rituals. Rituals are important in a variety of lifestyles and are often associated with culture, religion, etc. Fessler notes that rituals are often formed after observing a pseudo-causal association between the ritual actions and a favorable (or not so favorable) outcome. For example, wearing the same pair of dirty smelly socks every baseball game because you won the first game you played in these socks. Fessler notes that rituals are often formed as a result of problem-solving processes and come to be associated with the problem-solving process via the imitation of these actions through social learning. As one performs the actions, and others observe the outcomes, then the ritual is learning through social learning as the correct way to solve the problem.

Further evidence of social learning and social imitation of problem-solving comes from Lin et al. (2020) who sought to examine the role of social learning in problem-solving. Results demonstrated that social learning from single-gender groups (i.e., like-other groups) had the best outcomes when it came to problem solving. Further, the single-gender groups demonstrated increased capabilities in applying the learned knowledge to other problem-solving tasks. This research demonstrates the importance of social learning in problem solving not only as it happens, but also the imitation of successful problem-solving approaches from their social learning experiences.

There is further evidence for the interplay between social learning and cognitive process and neural structures. Koch et al. (2013) describes early developmental learning, such as that found in social learning contexts (Bandura, 1977), as a foundation for future learning success. Further, a review from Over and McCall (2018) proposes that social learning is valuable asset in socialization processes that works in conjunction with cognitive processes and social categorization processes. Social categories and the cognitive mechanisms that support them can help shape and affect children's future learning (Bigler & Liben, 2007; Gelman et al., 2004; Oostenbroek & Over, 2016; Rhodes et al., 2012).

More evidence of how cognitive processes and social learning are linked comes from L’Engle and Jackson (2008) which describes how social learning processes and cognitive susceptibility to socialization processes affect the onset of sexual behavior in adolescents. Results demonstrated that social learning processes such as peer pressure, social imitation, and connection to parents, school, and family all affect the intention to have and engagement in sexual behaviors. Further, the cognitive susceptibility to socialization processes mediated this effect with higher susceptibility leading to much higher instances of intention and engagement with sexual intercourse. These results show that problem solving is not the only cognitive process affected by social learning.

Another cognitive process that is related to social learning is decision making. Research by Fuqua and Newman (1994) notes that career belief research and practice is built upon not only social learning theory, but also the cognitive processes that underlie decision making. Fuqua and Newman note that social learning experience surrounding career expectations are powerful drivers for how we approach, interpret, and react to new career experiences. They further state that these social learning experiences may be facilitative or inhibitive on cognitive decision-making processes, especially as it relates to new events similar to those experienced via social learning.

Language is also an important cognitive process that involves instances of social learning. Language is a social phenomenon which we use to communicate feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, and more across people, places, and times. Ellis (2019) states that cognition is not just physically embodied but is also environmentally embedded, enacted, encultured, and socially distributed. How though is this possible? The Douglas Fir Group (2016) notes that language is a socially integrated phenomenon with roots in our cognitive processes. Language, according to Ellis (2019), is much more than just a social phenomenon, or a cognitive process. To Ellis, language (and by extension all cognitive processes) are larger concepts that integrate the cognitive with the social and must be viewed from all viewpoints. Language as a cognitive process allows us to take in, process, and use new information. However, these same processes allow social learning to affect the way we experience and interpret that information, as well as providing a lens through which we may experience future social and cognitive inputs (Ellis, 2019).

The Current Proposal

To summarize, many cognitive processes exist, even beyond those encompassed in this paper. Of the processes reviewed, all are related in some way to social learning and affect, or are affected by, social learning processes. Decision making, problem-solving, cognitive susceptibility, language, and so on all have roots in social learning, and the research on these topics should include social learning as a valuable tool in understanding them.

The following sections will present a research proposal that allows an investigation of a cognitive process and its link to social learning. The method section will propose the research idea and present the methodology for investigating the idea. Following the method, a potential results section will describe ways in which the study could potentially result. Finally, a discussion section will review the potential results, and provide the possible implications for those outcomes.

Method

The purpose of this method is to propose a research idea that allows the investigation of the links between social learning and cognitive processes. The various aspects of a research study will be presented and will culminate in a full research experiment.

Participants

Participants will be collected as randomly as possible from a sample of undergraduate college students. Participants will be as equal as possible in gender, race, sexual orientation, and any other demographics that may affect the results (to prevent effects based solely on these demographic factors). Participants will be recruited from local university research pools, social media posts, flyers, and word of mouth recruitment.

To ensure that our sample statistics come as close as possible to our population parameters and our statistical inferences are valid and consistent, we will gather at least 90 participants per condition, for a total of 180 participants. This number was found using the a priori procedure for sampling precision (Trafimow, 2017; Trafimow & MacDonald, 2017), using a .95 confidence level and a proposed precision level of .3, which is the minimum precision level necessary to be considered a precise sample.

Materials

Cognitive Problem-Solving task: To determine if social learning is a way to obtain knowledge and expertise on a cognitive task (or for a cognitive process) we must first decide which task to use. In this proposed experiment, I propose a problem-solving task. The task will be a simple problem-solving task. The task will have participants work to put together a moderately complicated puzzle. This puzzle will be something along the lines of a 20 to 30-piece puzzle. The goal of the task is to use cognitive processes involved in problem-solving to finish the puzzle.

Social Learning Video: Participants in the experimental condition will view a video showing a confederate (most likely a research assistant, or a volunteer graduate student) solving an unrelated puzzle. The confederate will talk through their approach to solving the puzzle while they solve it. This video will be the social learning stimulus that participants in the experimental condition will receive.

Measure of Social Learning: To measure the effect of the social learning video on the cognitive problem-solving task, time to completion of the puzzle will be used as the dependent variable. Past puzzle solving experience will be asked as a demographic question post-experiment and will be used as a mediator to make sure that past puzzle experience is not skewing results.

Demographics: Participants will be given a short survey at the end of the experiment that is meant to collect demographics data. Questions will include (but is not limited to) ethnicity, age, sexuality, gender, education level, and past experience with puzzles. These factors will be used to determine mediating effects as well as potential direct effects on their own.

Design/Procedure

The experiment will be a between-subjects experimental design. The experiment will have two conditions: an experimental condition and a control condition. The experimental condition will consist of a social learning video demonstration and the problem-solving task. The control condition will only have the problem-solving task.

Participants will be recruited and brought into the lab to take part in a “simple problem-solving experiment”. It is vital that participants do not know it’s about social learning as that could alter the results of the experiment. Following informed consent, participants will be placed into one of two conditions, either the social learning condition, or the control condition. In the social learning condition, a confederate or covert experimenter will engage with the problem-solving task (i.e., solving the puzzle) while the participant watches. This will be done via prerecorded video so as to keep consistency across participants when it comes to confederate puzzle solving speed.

Following the first showing of the video, the researcher will ask the participant to please solve the puzzle in front of them (a different puzzle than in the video to prevent cheating). The control condition participants will simply be asked to solve the puzzle without any social learning video demonstrations. Once the puzzle has been completed by the participant, they will be debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Results

Proposed analysis

All analyses will be conducted using the SPSS statistical package and any additional downloadable statistics packages compatible with the SPSS software. To analyze the results, we will use a one-way ANOVA to determine differences between the control condition and the experimental condition on the time it takes to solve the puzzle. A mediation analysis will determine if any demographic factors, or if past puzzle solving experience, have any effect on the time it takes to solve the puzzle.

Possible Results and Outcomes

I will now describe to potential outcomes of this study. First, we have the possibility that the results will show the social learning video does indeed have an effect on the speed with which they solve the puzzle. Perhaps the experimental condition shows a much faster speed in solving the problem-solving task than the control condition. If that is the case, then the study works, and future studies can investigate different approaches to this topic.

However, we also have another possible outcome and that is that the study does not succeed in showing significant effects of the social learning video on the problem-solving task. For instance, perhaps the control condition is just as fast at solving the puzzle, or perhaps is faster than the experimental condition! If this is the case, then future studies might need to be longitudinal, or use a different social learning stimulus.

Discussion

This paper has discussed the idea that social learning can affect the usage and adoption of cognitive processes and cognitive strategies. Heyes (2012) states that one aspect of learning is the adoption of cognitive processes and strategies, and how these processes and strategies coincide with social learning. In this paper, I proposed a research study that would allow the us to investigate the effects of social learning on a problem-solving task. Let’s discuss some of the limitations and implications of the proposed study.

Implications

If the study works and does indeed show that the social learning stimulus can affect a cognitive problem-solving task, then this means that social learning is linked directly to both early and late adoption of cognitive strategies. If the study works as intended, and shows these effects, then future research should be sure to include social learning effects as a meditator or even as a separate independent variable. There are some practical implications of this as well. If social learning does indeed affect cognitive problem-solving, then applied interventions focused on improving problem-solving skills can use social learning as a potential option to find the desired effect. Further, educational and health outcomes are often tied to cognitive processes such as decision-making or memory, and as such, social learning methods could potentially help improve these for the better.

If the study does not work as intended, then that means that perhaps social learning does not have as much of an effect as previously thought. If this is the case, then research on social learning and cognitive processes should be sure to consider other potential explanations for the effects they are researching. However, these are only a couple potential options. Without conducting the research, the possible implications are limitless as there is not concrete evidence in one direction or another. In the applied sense, if the study does not work then any interventions using social learning to affect cognitive outcomes would not be the best use of time and effort, and researchers and practitioners could then focus their efforts onto more applicable systems.

Limitations

There are definitely some limitations to this study. As of now, there is still a vast amount of literature yet to be reviewed. As such, this proposed study is based on my current understanding of the field and its approaches and ideas. The proposed methodology takes inspiration from both cognitive and social psychology; however, my knowledge of social methods is more diverse and thus might influence my methodology more than is appropriate. Addressing methodological limitations would require intense review of the literature on cognitive methods, or a collaboration with someone who is well-versed in cognitive methodologies.

Another limitation is the proposed analyses. I proposed a simple two-condition experiment and so analysis would be similarly simple. Future research, or a more detailed design of this study, should include more conditions perhaps not only and experimental and control, but also a counter-experimental condition, or multiple types of social learning stimuli such as in-person, video, etc. Further, the sample will most likely be limited to students, and if that is the case, addressing this limitation would require a much more diverse sample of participants from a wider range of demographics.

To summarize and conclude, social learning is thought to be linked to the use and adoption of cognitive processes and strategies. This may come in the context of memory, language, decision-making, problem-solving, or more. The proposed experiment seeks to address some of the lack luster research on this topic by introducing a social learning stimulus into a problem-solving task situation and determining if that social learning stimulus affects the outcome of that task. 

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