Review article
Social cognition – factors that affect adequate human functioning in society and disorders resulting from function deficits

Social cognition is defined as a cognitive process that includes encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing of information in the brain. Its functioning includes two types of process – automatic and controlled. Studies on this function showed that it includes such abilities as social perception, emotion recognition, attribution styles and theory of mind. When it functions properly, the mechanism allows us to understand information flowing from the environment and create adaptive responses.

The article is an attempt to present issues related to social cognition. The paper is based on a review of literature relevant to indicated issues. There are three main parts of the paper. At the beginning there is a short introduction to social cognition. Then determinants that affect development of social skills are described. This section refers to and describes genes, family and other environmental factors. In the conclusion deficits of social cognition specific to autism and schizophrenia are described.

Only further research on the discussed problem that will include various difficulties of the persons with low quality of social interaction may allow us to fully understand the phenomenon of social cognition and create appropriate rehabilitation programs.