Presenting state-of-the-art research from leading investigators, this volume examines the processes by which people understand their interpersonal experiences. Provided are fresh perspectives on how individuals glean social knowledge from past relationships and apply it in the here and now. Also explored are the effects of biases and expectancies about significant others on relationship satisfaction and personal well-being. Broad in scope, the book integrates findings from experimental social psychology with insights from developmental, personality, and clinical psychology. Throughout, chapters strike an appropriate balance between theory and method, offering an understanding of the core issues involved as well as the tools needed to study them.

Cognitive therapy, with its clear-cut measurable techniques, has been a welcome innovation in recent years. However, the very specificity that lends itself so well to research and training has minimized the role of the therapeutic relationship, making it difficult for therapists to respond flexibly to different clinical situations. What is needed is an approach that focuses on the underlying mechanisms of therapeutic change, not just on interventions. In this practical and original book, two highly respected clinician-researchers integrate findings from cognitive psychology, infant developmental research, emotion theory, and relational therapy to show how change takes place in the interpersonal context of the therapeutic relationship and involves experiencing the self in new ways, not just altering behavior or cognitions. Making use of extensive clinical transcripts accompanied by moment-to-moment analyses of the change process, the authors illustrate the subtle interaction of cognitive and interpersonal factors. They show how therapy unfolds at three different levels—in fluctuations in the patient's world, in the therapeutic relationship, and in the therapist's inner experience—and provide clear guidelines for when to focus on a particular level. The result is a superb integration of cognitive and interpersonal approaches that will have a major impact on theory and practice. A Jason Aronson Book

Historically, the social aspects of language use have been considered the domain of social psychology, while the underlying psycholinguistic mechanisms have been the purview of cognitive psychology. Recently, it has become increasingly clear that these two dimensions are highly interrelated: cognitive mechanisms underlying speech production and comprehension interact with social psychological factors, such as beliefs about one's interlocutors and politeness norms, and with the dynamics of the conversation itself, to produce shared meaning. This realization has led to an exciting body of research integrating the social and cognitive dimensions which has greatly increased our understanding of human language use. Each chapter in this volume demonstrates how the theoretical approaches and research methods of social and cognitive psychology can be successfully interwoven to provide insight into one or more fundamental questions about the process of interpersonal communication. The topics under investigation include the nature and role of speaker intentions in the communicative process, the production and comprehension of indirect speech and figurative language, perspective-taking and conversational collaboration, and the relationships between language, cognition, culture, and social interaction. The book will be of interest to all those who study interpersonal language use: social and cognitive psychologists, theoretical and applied linguists, and communication researchers.

Modern interpersonal psychology is now at a point where recent advances need to be organized so that researchers, practitioners, and students can understand what is new, different, and state-of-the art. This field-defining volume examines the history of interpersonal psychology and explores influential theories of normal-abnormal behaviors, widely-used assessment measures, recent methodological advances, and current interpersonal strategies for changing problematic behaviors. Featuring original contributions from field luminaries including Aaron Pincus, John Clarkin, David Buss, Louis Castonguay, and Theodore Millon, this cutting-edge volume will appeal to academicians, professionals, and students interested in the study of normal and abnormal interpersonal behavior.

This book reviews some of the most recent advances in research exploring the links between how people think and behave in interpersonal situations. This cutting-edge volume will interest those in the social and behavioral sciences, clinical and counseling psychology, and sociology, communication studies, and social work.

This book is a unique exploration of the idea of the "second person" in human interaction, the idea that face-to-face interactions involve a distinctive form of reciprocal mental state attributions that mediates their dynamical unfolding. Challenging the view of mental attribution as a sort of "theory of mind", Pérez and Gomila argue that the second person perspective of mental understanding is the conceptually, ontogenetically, and phylogenetically basic way of understanding mentality. Second person interaction provides the opportunity for the acquisition of concepts of mental states of increasing complexity. The book reviews the growing interest in a variety of second person phenomena, both in development and in adulthood, presenting research that shows how participants in human interaction attribute psychological states of a referentially transparent kind to each other. This review documents the spontaneous preference for face-to-face interaction, from eye contact to joint attention, from forms of vitality to communicative intentions, from interaction detection to joint action, and from synchrony to interpersonal coordination. Also looking at the implications and applications of the second person perspective within fields as diverse as art and morality, this book is fascinating reading for students and academics in social and cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy.

Social cognition, as a field, can be characterized as a distinct subarea of social psychology that examines all of the countless cognitive complexities, mental representations, and processes implicated in interaction, as well as an approach to studying interactions in the context of the groups, cultures, and societies to which they belong. Together these two facets of social cognition create one of the most influential and important social sciences to come along in some time. Providing a comprehensive review of major topics in the field of social cognition, The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition expresses that excitement and fascination in describing the content and approach that constitute the field today. The 43 chapters included in this handbook cover: - central aspects of the field of social cognition, including its history and historically important foundational research areas (attribution, attitudes, impression formation, and prejudice/stereotyping), along with methodology - core issues relating to social cognitive representations and processes (including those that are visual, implicit, or automatic) and the stages of information processing (attention, perception, memory, and judgment, along with simulation and thought suppression) - applications of the social cognition approach to areas of social psychology, general psychology, and other disciplines, such as marketing, law, health and politics After more than 30 years, the vibrant field of social cognition continues to reign as one of psychology's most dominant approaches. The impressive chapters collected in this volume define the field and contribute enormously to our understanding of what social cognition is today.