Institutional Cognitive Economics: some recent developments

Gigante, Anna Azzurra (2013): Institutional Cognitive Economics: some recent developments.

Abstract

By investigating the connection between mind working and institutional processes, Institutional Cognitive Economics turns out to be the most appropriate in order to overcome some limits in New Institutional Economics. This leads us to develop further this approach. This paper integrates F. Hayek’s theory on knowledge production and A. Bandura’s social cognitive theory with the fertile contributions coming from Self-Organization approach and cognitive path-dependence, by considering also the recent cognitive acquisitions in D. North’s analysis. Then, it proposes a further development. Learning process is broken into smaller sub-processes, each of them is investigated through new analytical tools coming from cognitive psychology and neurobiology. They are T. Higgins’s extension of social cognitive theory and semantic priming concept. These mechanisms clarify well reinforcement and evolution processes of institutional norms, while their genesis finds a convincing explanation in social representations’ theory, as it was formulated by S. Moscovici, which investigates the imaginative dimension ordering perceived data before they are processed into new knowledge.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: cognitive path-dependence; institutions; knowledge activation/use; semantic priming; social cognitive theory; social representation.
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A12 - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925 > B25 - Historical ; Institutional ; Evolutionary ; Austrian

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