ABSTRACT
Many of our thoughts and decisions occur without us being conscious of them taking place; connectionism attempts to reveal the internal hidden dynamics that drive the thoughts and actions of both individuals and groups. Connectionist modeling is a radically innovative approach to theorising in psychology, and more recently in the field of social psychology. The connectionist perspective interprets human cognition as a dynamic and adaptive system that learns from its own direct experiences or through indirect communication from others.
Social Connectionism offers an overview of the most recent theoretical developments of connectionist models in social psychology. The volume is divided into four sections, beginning with an introduction and overview of social connectionism. This is followed by chapters on causal attribution, person and group impression formation, and attitudes. Each chapter is followed by simulation exercises that can be carried out using the FIT simulation program; these guided exercises allow the reader to reproduce published results.
Social Connectionism will be invaluable to graduate students and researchers primarily in the field of social psychology, but also in cognitive psychology and connectionist modeling.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|61 pages
Basics
part 2|93 pages
Causal attribution
chapter 4|29 pages
When more observations are better than less
chapter 5|28 pages
An autoassociative model of causal reasoning and causal learning
chapter 6|34 pages
When one explanation is enough
part 3|186 pages
Person and group impression formation
chapter 7|31 pages
Knowledge acquisition, accessibility, and use in person perception and stereotyping
chapter 10|37 pages
Subtyping versus bookkeeping in stereotype learning and change
part 4|81 pages
Attitudes