Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive complexity is an important variable because it relates to perceptions of social justice issues.

Something has complexity when it involves multiple components or dimensions.

Cognitive complexity involves holding multidimensional images of the world around us.  It comes in two forms:

• Representational complexity  = mental image consisting of multiple objects not a simple average
• Attributional complexity = mental image of a person in context rather than an individual in isolation

 

                   Representational Complexity                                                                    Attributional Complexity

          is your mental representation the form of                                             is your mental representation the form of

    one overall group   – OR –    several specific objects                                 a person alone   – OR –    a person in a situation

.                                                                                           

Our research has examined how cognitive complexity relates to prejudice and perceptions of social justice issues.  People with higher levels of cognitive complexity are lower in prejudice, more likely to notice subtle racism, and more likely to reject other forms of social injustices.  

These outcomes are not just because people who are low in prejudice are more cognitively complex.  We have manipulated cognitive complexity in the lab, and the result of inducing more complexity is that it leads to less negative views of outgroups.

 

Foels, R. (in prep). Feminist identity development, cognitive complexity, and social hierarchy opposition.

Foels, R. (in prep). Refugees are people too: Inducing complex cognitive representations reduces cross-cultural dehumanization.

Foels, R.,  & Reid, L. D. (2010). Gender differences in social dominance orientation: The role of cognitive complexity. Sex Roles, 62,684-692.

Foels, R., & Tomcho, T. J. (2009). Gender differences in interdependent self-construals: It’s not the type of group, it’s the way you see it. Self and Identity, 8, 396-417.

Mullen, B., Pizzuto, C., & Foels, R. (2002). Altering intergroup perceptions by altering prevailing mode of cognitive representation: “They look like people.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1333-1343.

Reid, L. D., & Foels, R. (2010). Cognitive complexity and the perception of subtle racism. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32,291-301.

Rustin, B., & Foels, R. (2014). Gender differences in the need to belong: Different cognitive representations of the same social groups. Current Research in Social Psychology, 22, 1-9.