关键词: 社会认知, “大二”模型, 热情, 能力

Abstract: There are two fundamental content dimensions in social cognition, warmth and competence, which are also called “Big Two”. The first dimension is related to the goal of communion which emphasises the processing of social information relevant to warmth or social traits(e.g., helpful, honest), the other dimension concerns the goal of agency which emphasises the processing of information relevant to competence or intellectual traits(e.g., clever, creative). Why do we think these two dimensions basic? The two dimensions, from an ontological viewpoint, are an adequate reflection of social reality. On the other hand, they are also functional to social perceivers. From the point of evolutionary psychology, people encounting others must judge the intentions of the other person or group, and their ability to act on those intentions. The concept of “Big Two” has been put forward for nearly a decade and has been widely accepted. However, it`s still in the stage of constructing, testing and further refining, so the researh mainly revolves around a few crucial questions. Firstly, is it generalizable for different cultures? The names of two dimensions are still not unified, what’s more, researchers recently argued that moral may be a more important dimension than warmth. Secondly, what’s the relationship between the two fundamental dimensions? They may be orthogonal, positive or negative related and each of them was supported by different evidences. Thirdly, which is the bigger one of “Big Two”? Warmth generally is the more important and primary one in “Big Two”, but it can be moderated by the perceivers` perspective and situations. Altogether, the research of “Big Two” still have a long way to go. Firstly, the study on “Big Two” in China should base on the local culture and use an more reasonable name, because Chinese emphasized that talents should combine ability with political integrity, but not warmth. Secondly, further researches be done on the three focus issues of “Big Two”. Thirdly, we should base future research about embodied cognition based on the two dimesions, because both of them are embodied abstractions in social cognitive processes.

Key words: social cognition, Big Two, warmth, competence