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.

Donald E. Carlston, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, and Past Editor, Journal of Social Cognition.

Part One: History and Foundations of Social Cognition
1. On the Nature of Social Cognition; My Defining Moment
Donal E. Carlston
2. The Emergence of Social Cognition
David L. Hamilton and Donal E. Carlston
3. Measurement and Methodology in Social Cognition: An Historical Perspective
Alan J. Lambert and Laura Scherer
4. A Brief History of Theory and Research on Impression Formation
James S. Uleman and Laura M. Kressel
5. Automaticity and Control in Stereotyping and Prejudice: The Revolutionary Role of Social Cognition Across Three Decades of Research
Margo J. Monteith, Anna Woodcock, and Jill E. Lybarger
6. Attribution as a Gateway to Social Cognition
Glenn D. Reeder
7. Attitudes and Social Cognition as Social Psychological Siblings
Duane T. Wegener and Richard E. Petty
Part Two: Mental Representation and Information Processing
8. The Role of Visual Imagery in Social Cognition
Lisa K. Libby and Richard P. Eibach
9. Faces are Central to Social Cognition
Kurt Hugenberg and John Paul Wilson
10. The Highs and Lows of Mental Representation: A Construal Level Perspective on the Structure of Knowledge
SoYon Rim, Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman, and Oren Shapira
11. Implicit Social Cognition and Mental Representation
B. Keith Payne and C. Daryl Cameron
12. Automaticity
Ap Dijksterhuis
13. The Role of Procedural Knowledge in the Generalizeability of Social Behavior
Robert S. Wyer Jr., Hao Shen, and Alison Jing Xu
14. Dual-Process Theories
Bertram Gawronski and Laura A. Creighton
15. The "Cold" and "Hot" Sides of Attention
Daniel Smilek and Alexandra Frischen
16. On Misers, Managers, and Monsters: The Social Cognition of Visual Perception
Emily Balcetis and Shana Cole
17. Person Memory: Past, Perspectives, and Prospects
John J. Skowronski, Randy J. McCarthy, and Brett M. Wells
18. Judgment and Decision Making
Leaf Van Boven, Mark Travers, Jacob Westfall, and Gary McClelland
19. Mental Simulation: Looking Back in Order to Look Ahead
Keith D. Markman and Elizabeth A. Dyczewski
20. Thought Suppression
Sadia Najmi
Part Three: Social Cognition and Social Psychology
21. Moods, Emotions, and Evaluations as Information
Linda M. Isbell and Elicia C. Lair
22. Motivated Remembering: Remembering as Accessibility and Accessibility as Motivational Relevance
Baruch Eitam, David B. Miele, and E. Tory Higgins
23. The Mind in Motivation: A Social Cognitive Perspective on the Role of Consciousness in Goal Pursuit
Melissa Ferguson and Jeremy Cone
24. The Social Cognition of the Self
Allen R. McConnell, Christina M. Brown, and Tonya M. Shoda
25. Cherished Memories: Autobiographical Memory and the Self
Denise R. Beike
26. Self-evaluation and Self-esteem
Mark R. Leary and Meredith L. Terry
27. Stereotype Development and Formation
Steven J. Sherman, Jeffrey W. Sherman, Elise J. Percy, and Courtney K. Soderberg
28. Social Power and Cognition
Ana Guinote
29. Interpersonal Cognition: Seeking, Understanding, and Maintaining Relationships
Gráinne M. Fitzsimons and Joanna Anderson
30. Group Cognition: Collective Information Search and Distribution
John M. Levine and Eliot R. Smith
Part Four: Synergies with Other Realms of Social Science
31. Interfacing Body, Mind, the Physical, and Social World: Socially Situated Cognition
Gün R. Semin, Margarida V. Garrido, and Tomás Palma
32. Evolutionary Social Cognition
Steven L. Neuberg, D. Vaughn Becker, and Douglas T. Kenrick
33. Mortal Cognition: Viewing Self and the World from the Precipice
Jeff Greenberg, Mark J. Landau, and Jamie Arndt
34. The Neuroscience of Social Cognition
David M. Amodio and Kyle G. Ratner
35. Communication and Language Use in Social Cognition
Yoshihisa Kashima and Ying Lan
36. Social Cognitive Development: Learning from Others
Gail D. Heyman and Cristine H. Legare
37. Culture and Social Cognition
Chi-yue Chiu, Sharon S-L. Ng, and Evelyn W-M. Au
38. The Person-Situation Interaction
John F. Kihlstrom
39. Consumer Information Processing
Frank R. Kardes and Robert S. Wyer Jr.
40. Law and Social Cognition
Barbara A. Spellman and Frederick Schauer
41. "Hot" Political Cognition: Its Self-, Group-, and System-Serving Purposes
John T. Jost, Erin P. Hennes, and Howard Lavine
42. Social Cognition and Health
Shelley E. Taylor
43. Trends in Social Cognition Research
Donal E. Carlston and Erica D. Schneid