Motivated Social Cognition in Individuals, Organizations, and Societies

Topic Information

Dear Colleagues,

Motivated social cognition is a broad meta-theoretical framework that can be used to examine how individuals process information to satisfy underlying needs. Motivated social cognition can affect attitudes, decision-making, and behavior at multiple levels. At the individual level, ego protection involves mechanisms like cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias to maintain a positive self-image. At the level of groups and organizations, group-protection processes, rooted in Social Identity Theory, prioritize the status of the “ingroup” to ensure belonging. At the level of systems and societies, system–protection processes, explained by System Justification Theory, provide motives to view existing social structures as fair and stable. These motives at multiple levels can be integrated with the Social Identity Model of System Attitudes (SIMSA) to better understand how heuristics and biases scale up to shape entire institutions. These frameworks provide vital tools for interdisciplinary social science. For instance, in political science, they explain the “echo chambers” of modern partisanship, while in criminal justice, they shed light on how systemic biases persist within judicial decision-making despite reform efforts. In sociology, these motivations manifest in the resistance to social movements, as individuals perceive threats to the established order as threats to their own psychological security. Furthermore, in communications, motivated cognition clarifies how “fake news” and selective exposure sustain polarized realities, while in administrative science, it illuminates how organizational silence and resistance to innovation often stem from a collective need to preserve institutional legitimacy. By examining these real-world phenomena—from the polarization of public health discourse to the persistence of organizational glass ceilings—this section offers a comprehensive look at the “psychological glue” that preserves the status quo and the cognitive shifts necessary for societal evolution. The above examples of theories and contexts are not representative of the full scope of what is relevant to this special topic section, and authors are encouraged to add and integrate perspectives and explore additional contexts.

In the interest of advancing a more robust and transparent social science, we strongly encourage submissions that utilize open-science practices, including the sharing of data, materials, and pre-registration of hypotheses. We particularly welcome Registered Reports, which allow for peer review of study designs before data collection begins, ensuring that the merit of the research is judged on the rigor of its methodology and theoretical contribution rather than the novelty of the results. By prioritizing these practices, we aim to build a reproducible and trustworthy foundation for understanding the complex motivations that shape our social world.

Dr. Andrew S. Franks
Prof. Dr. Hajime Otani
Topic Editors

Keywords

Participating Journals

Journal Name	Impact Factor	CiteScore	Launched Year	First Decision (median)	APC
International Journal of Cognitive Sciences ijcs	-	-	2025	15.0 days *	CHF 1000	Submit
Laws laws	1.1	3.0	2012	43 Days	CHF 1400	Submit
Psychology International psycholint	-	-	2019	24.4 Days	CHF 1200	Submit
Social Sciences socsci	1.7	3.1	2012	33.1 Days	CHF 1800	Submit
Societies societies	1.6	3.0	2011	29.9 Days	CHF 1600	Submit
World world	1.9	-	2020	24.7 Days	CHF 1200	Submit

* Median value for all MDPI journals in the second half of 2025.

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