A Study Of Implicit Cognition Of Social Structure Judgment

Social hierarchy is a basic feature of social reality, and it can strengthen the stratification and shape individuals’ mind and behavior. People can classify themselves into high or low status groups, and perceive their social structures and social relationships holistically. The holistic process of social structure manifests itself as an intrinsic representation within the cognitive structure (i.e., cognitive schema), as well as the dependence on the external perceptual experiences (i.e., metaphor and embodied cognition). Meanwhile, the holistic perception often occurs at an unconscious level due to the influence of cognitive efficiency. With the deepening of the researches related to social structure in the area of social cognition, especially the development of social perception, power theories and social cognitive theory of social class, researchers have gradually paid attention to the influence of macro social structure (socioeconomic status) and micro-level experience of social structure(perception of social structure) on individual cognition and behavior. Based on the perspective of social cognition, this study examines the unconscious perception of social structure and its subsequent effects. Participants were presented with some stimulus characterizing hierarchical or equivalent social structures and then their responses were recorded in the subsequent experimental tasks related to judgement,behavioral movement and emotional perception.In study 1, a process dissociation procedure was used to explore the automatic judgement of social structure. We hypothesized that the implicit cognition of hierarchical and equivalent structures was based on the perception of warmth and competence. The results showed that, when participants judged equivalent structure,the contribution of unconscious processing was higher than that of conscious processing, especially for the perception of warmth, the warmth perception showed a higher degree of automation than competence. On the other hand, when participants judged hierarchical structure, the contribution of unconscious processing was higher than that of conscious processing, especially for the perception of competence,however, a same level of automatic perception was found between warmth and competence.Study 2 explored the effect of the unconscious perception of social structure by employing the priming paradigm (i.e., the Word-search Puzzle). We hypothesized that the perception of hierarchical or equivalent structure would influence participants’behavioral motivation. In an intrinsically motivated task, the equivalent structure priming activated higher approach motivation compared with the hierarchical structure priming. However,in an extrinsically motivated task, the equivalent structure priming activated higher avoidance motivation compared with the hierarchical structure priming.Study 3 further investigated the effect of the unconscious perception of social structure employing the evaluative priming task. We hypothesized that the perception of hierarchical or equivalent structure would influence participants’ emotional judgement. The hierarchical structure priming activated higher negative emotional intensity, while the equivalent structure priming activated both higher negative and positive emotional intensity. No significant difference of emotional intensity was found between these two priming condition.Our assumptions that the automatic judgement of social structure and its influence on psychology process were confirmed. Theoretical as well as societal implications were discussed.