What do we mean by the social mind? In what ways is thinking 'inside your head' also social thinking? How do community and culture shape learning?

The social mind is the psychical process which mediates the new adjustments in the group life-process. The "social mind" is, in brief, a convenient term for the socio-psychical process. Just as in the most recent individual psychology the term "mind" has come to mean, not an entity, but a process, so in social psychology the terns "social mind" must mean, not a societary "soul," but a societary process. In both cases the term expresses the unity of the process— the fact that the many visible psychic processes are aspects of but a single unified process.

What social psychology stands for— and accordingly also the concepts "social mind ' and "social consciousness"— is the perception that a single process may go on through several "centers of experience."

The relation which the social mind bears to individual minds, and, in general, the relation which socio-psychical processes bear to individual psychical processes, may be illustrated by the analogy of the organism. If from one point of view the activities of the organism appear only as the activities of its cells, from another point of view the activities of the cells appear only as elements in the activity of the organism. The case is exactly the same with socio-psychical and individual psychical processes. The socio-psychical processes are simply the individual psychical processes under the aspect of the larger functional whole in whose psychical activity they appear as elements. The social mind, then, is immanent in the individual mind, and both are aspects of a single reality.

Social thinking refers to a process we all go through in our mind as we try to make sense of our own and others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions in context, whether we are co-existing, actively interacting, or figuring out what is happening from a distance (e.g., media, literature, etc.). Our ability to think socially is part of social emotional learning that begins at birth and evolves across our lifetime.

Usually, whenever our attention isn’t occupied, a stream of mental associations flows through our minds — thoughts about the future or the past, fragments of songs or conversations, daydreams about alternative realities or friends or celebrities. This is often referred to as “Thinking inside your head” or "thought-chatter". It’s almost always random and involuntary. It runs through our heads, whether we like it or not. Because all these thoughts are a result of our obvious co-existence with other humans, “thinking inside your head” can be classified as a part of Social Thinking itself.

Now, coming to learning. It would be highly incorrect to say that learning only has to do with processes within learners. In reality, the culture and community in which a person learns, sets the agenda for learning in several ways. It determines what is learnt and influences how and when it is learnt. What and how a person learns is influenced in large measure by the culture in which the learning occurs and the social interaction processes in which the learner engages.

Both a culture and groups within cultures have bodies of knowledge that, they believe, will assist individuals to transact in social activities. Cultural institutions such as the home, the school, the media, sports and the arts are responsible for this teaching.

This knowledge is displayed in how members of the culture communicate and transact. It includes our 'scientific' understanding of the world, what we know about operating a bank account, about how to spell in English, etc. The conventions for writing words, the words themselves, their meanings, have all been determined by the culture. The recent focus on 'politically correct' ideas is one illustration of the influence of culture on our attitudinal knowledge. Any culture values some attitudes over others. Culturally valued ideas are learnt by individuals aligning their personal interpretations with the socially-culturally agreed understanding through a range of social interaction processes.

Cultures and social groups are also characterised by particular ways of thinking. For effective participation in social activities in the culture, members of the culture are expected to learn these. Some theories of learning and thinking propose that individuals learn ways of thinking directly in their social interactions with others, particularly they are engaged in solving socially defined problems. They internalise this activity and later use the newly-learnt mental processes by themselves, without the support of others; cognitive development is "the conversion of social relations into mental functions"

Learners first becomes aware of the ways of thinking in a culture by participating with others to solve problems that they have. The actions they see being used are often referred to as 'tools. We learn these ways of thinking when we see how other members of our culture use the corresponding tools to solve problems.

Not only does the culture decide what is useful knowledge, it also guides learners towards socially valued outcomes. Learners display what they are learning and what they have learnt. Members of the culture respond to this display with feedback that has the potential to changing the knowledge learnt.

References

https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Ellwood/Ellwood_1900_4.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/out-the-darkness/201803/the-voice-inside-your-head

Vygotsky, 1981, p. 165

https://students.education.unimelb.edu.au/selage/pub/readings/psyexlearn/PELculturaleffects.pdf