All those psychological processes that deal with gathering and proces…

The correct answer is Option (3) → Social Cognition

Option (1) Social self — Incorrect. The social self is a part of one’s self that emerges in relation with others and values cooperation, unity, affiliation, sharing and family relationships; it is also called the familial or relational self. It is a view of oneself, not a set of processes for handling information.

Option (2) Social attitude — Incorrect. An attitude is a state of the mind, a set of views about some topic with an emotional component and a tendency to act. Attitudes are one of the products of social cognition, not the whole set of processes.

Option (3) Social Cognition — Correct. Cognition refers to all those mental processes that deal with obtaining and processing of information. Extended to the social world, social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects, which help in understanding, explaining and interpreting social behaviour.

Option (4) Stereotypes — Incorrect. A stereotype is a cluster of ideas about the characteristics of a specific group. It is one kind of schema that social cognition uses, not the processes themselves.

Note: The definition of social cognition was there in the chapter ‘Attitude and Social Cognition’ of the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023, and is not there in the NCERT book (2025-26), which uses the term without defining it. Hence this question has been picked from the pre-rationalised NCERT.