Socio-Cognitive Factor Theory.

Being human, what does it mean to be human? Among many other things, our capacity for thought, higher level of cognition and decision making identifies us as a superior species. Deciding for each of us means navigating through seas of ideas, possibilities and in turn an endless labyrinth of thousands or millions of alternatives.

With each of our decisions, we seek to get as close as possible to an ideal scenario of what we seek, desire or understand to be correct, however, who or what determines what is correct? The most sensible answer is society, through its bodies, laws, agreements and norms, which in turn seek to regulate the relationship we have in making decisions and that do not imply any harm to other people or entities of that or other societies.

Now, decision making should be based on the ability to distinguish between what we understand to be correct (perception) and what is scientifically proven, the latter ruling out the possibility that a false idea can be understood as an alternative within our decision scheme…however, this is not always the case and, on the contrary, most of our judgment on some issues lacks veracity, especially because of the sources that induce us to decide with the objective of creating these false ideas with the clear intention of manipulating our ideas.

This is why we understand that perception over the years (in our country) has been winning over other cognitive processes, since there are more and more decisions that we make based on purely propagandistic elements than verifiable ones. Therefore we must ask ourselves the question: is society conditioning our thinking? Is this conditioning in turn a desire to conceal or limit our rational capacity to make better or more well-founded decisions or judgments about the phenomena that surround us? This article probably raises more questions than answers, however, it is precisely our intention when addressing this issue, since it is precisely these doubts that sustain our Socio-Cognitive Factor Theory.

We propose that our rational sense has been progressively diminished by misinformation, although paradoxically we have more access than ever to information and reliable sources, but on the contrary, every day the need for verification and the rational sense of deciding seem to diminish.

According to (pinker, 2021) Rationality is important. It allows us to make better decisions in our lives and in the public sphere, and it is the main driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humor, Rationality will enlighten us, inspire us and empower us.
Moral progress is defined by a society that thinks and is rational, not one that decides by merely perceptual stimuli. Each factor of our cognition must play its role in the face of the responsibility of societies and individuals to be rational.

We argue that our society has been decreasing the factors of attention and thought and these in turn have been replaced by perception and memory, that is, what we perceive and what we remember about what we perceive, which leads us to subsequently decide.

Our country leads the world ranking in traffic accidents (Diario Libre, 2023), according to the Gender Equality Observatory of ECLAC, the Dominican Republic is in second place with the highest number of feminicides in Latin America. Regarding crime, 45% of general homicides were caused by social conflicts, that is, approximately 5 out of 10 cases are due to reasons of incompatibility of ideas or intolerance of the same within a society that paradoxically has grown macroeconomically and in a sustained manner during the last 15 years. In education, we must point out the OECD study (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I), which places our country in the last three places in terms of student performance in the areas of mathematics, science and reading. Is it possible that a society that uses the rationality and precision of “exercised” cognitive processes can generate such a level of incompatibility of coexistence?

We are aware that we have a multifactorial problem, however this is directly proportional to the social aspects and their influence on our cognitive and belief system. It is inevitable to develop scientific strategies that collaborate first to identify in depth the causes of this perceptible lack of the more pronounced use of the factors of attention and thought, second how this population has been repeating and acquiring these patterns that are increasingly increasing and finally to develop psychological and pedagogical strategies that can promote a more rational sense of coexistence and analytical thinking in our society.

Author:
Master Ariel Báez P. – Dean of the School of Humanities.