This program of research builds on the concept of "situated cognition", which includes the ideas that cognition evolved to direct adaptive behavior, and that motivation and emotion are properly considered a part of cognition. Integration of this novel viewpoint with the sophisticated theoretical and empirical knowledge of mainstream social psychology leads to two projects addressing different substantive areas. The projects use multiple methods, including computer simulations of connectionist networks, and empirical laboratory-based studies with human participants. One project works toward increasing understanding of the mental representation of attitudes and stereotypes. One set of studies uses computer simulations to investigate how the functional properties of attitudes (their role in the guidance of action) relate to their representational properties such as evaluative priming, a link that has not previously been drawn. Empirical studies with human participants will test the hypothesis (flowing from the situated cognition approach) that attitude representations link attitude objects to the self. Additional studies will test the hypothesis that representations of social groups emphasize not the groups' intrinsic qualities (such as personality traits), but rather their relationship to the perceiver's own in-groups. A second project is aimed at understanding interrelationships of individual mental representations and communication processes. The situated cognition perspective holds that cognition occurs not just in an isolated individual mind, but through social interaction and communication. These studies specifically address the role of language in implicitly communicating aspects of mental representations from one person to another. The broader goals of this research program are to contribute to the integration of the situated cognition perspective with mainstream social psychology, and, to enhance scientific understanding of such socially important phenomena as attitudes, stereotypes, interpersonal communication, and social influence.
