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Social Neuroscience of Self-categorization

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science
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Synonyms

Social neuroscience of social identity

Definition

The study of neural processes underlying representation of social group membership.

Introduction

Self-categorization is a cognitive process of perceiving both oneself and others in terms of collective entities (social groups or categories) rather than in terms of individual characteristics and personality. Development of new methods of the brain research allows studying self-categorization at the neural level. Self-categorization became one of the key issues in a new scientific discipline, social neuroscience, which is an interdisciplinary field of research on the intersection of neuroscience and social psychology studying neural basis and mechanisms of social cognition, emotions, and behaviors.

Self-categorization in Social Psychology

Self-categorization refers to social categorization, i.e., classifying individuals into social groups or categories, from an ego-centric perspective. This means that not only social world is...

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Correspondence to Alexander Shkurko .

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Shkurko, A. (2018). Social Neuroscience of Self-categorization. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2426-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2426-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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