A Messifesto: The Social Cognition Research Initiative

I have written a great deal in recent months about social cognition: the way that our connections to others influence our thinking, values, and capabilities. In 2011, I will be spending a considerable amount on a long-range research initiative to explore the subject in depth.

The research approach will include the following:

• Clarifying the elements of social cognition like learning, performance, decision making, affiliation, sense making, and others.
• Assimilating research from anthropology, sociology, cognitive science, linguistics, behavioral economics, media studies, education, and basically anywhere else that sheds light on social cognition, and interviewing the researchers to get them to extrapolate on their results, especially in the context of the social business.
• Consolidating what I have learned into regular findings, and providing briefings on those findings, with special regard to the question of how these findings should lead to change in business operations, philosophy, and culture.
• A summary of the research at year’s end, and with possible workshops and briefings.

I will be conducting the research in an open fashion, here at this website. However, I will also be working with various sponsoring organizations, who will be more deeply involved in the research process, and will have regular briefings with them on the findings and their implications for business.

I am also happy to say that I will be collaborating with FreedomLab Future Studies, an Amsterdam-based, independent, not-for-profit research institute, and will be a researcher-in-residence in 2011, working with the team there on the social cognition initiative. I’m looking forward to working with the team and the institutes’ member companies on this project.

Please contact me here is you’d like more information on the initiative, and how you might get involved.