The Socio-cognitive Politics of Curiosity and Attention

A pervasive dichotomy structures our perception of social reality: a small number of highlighted and remarkable phenomena (what we heed, the socio-cognitive spotlight) stand out against an unarticulated background (what we disregard, the socio-cognitive default). The opposition, the attentional asymmetry, is further consolidated by both common sense and academic thinking, since usually the culturally salient elements get more attention, while unnoticed “negative spaces” get even less. It is difficult to analytically break this circle even from a scientific perspective. In fact, paying full attention to what goes fully unnoticed (i.e., to define the undefined, mark the unmarked, listen to the sound of the socially soundless) seems unnatural for social scientists as well. The sociology of unmarkedness and taken-for-grantedness is nothing but a niche field, an underdeveloped approach that deals with the structures of cultural invisibility, unconscious rules of irrelevance, automatic frames of meaning, and collective attention patterns. This chapter intends to elaborate on a distinctive implication of cultural-cognitive social theory: how is it possible that individuals are constantly prone to downplay the relevance of those psycho-social features more consequential to them while spending too much energy (and time) engaged with worthless activities and arguably unimportant diversions? In the attempt to provide scientifically sound answers and stimulate analytically innovative discussion, the chapter focuses on a particular series of dichotomies: (-) engineered vs. spontaneous actions; (-) frequency/ensconced by practice vs. effortful deliberations; (-) change vs. unchanged; (-) actions vs. reactions. Accordingly, a social action theory of attentional asymmetries is developed within the framework of cultural-cognitive sociology.