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  • Perspective
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The role of social interaction in the formation and use of abstract concepts

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 4, pages 470–483 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Abstractness — the capability to form and use abstract concepts, like ‘fantasy’ — is pivotal to human cognition. Different abstract concepts are characterized by different degrees of sensorimotor, interoceptive, emotional, linguistic and social aspects. In this Perspective, we propose a social route to abstractness, highlighting the role of social interaction and conceptual flexibility in abstract concept acquisition and use. We distinguish two notions: ‘socialness’, the idea that the content of abstract concepts evokes more social aspects than concrete concepts, and ‘social metacognition’, a process that includes a monitoring and an interactive phase. Compared with concrete concepts, social support is more critical to acquiring abstract concepts and to aligning and co-building conceptual meaning while using them. We also introduce a semantic dimension, vagueness, which distinguishes abstract concepts with more determinate meaning (such as some scientific and magnitude concepts) and abstract concepts whose meaning remains vague and socially negotiable. We connect the literatures on concepts, knowledge outsourcing and knowledge communities and highlight open research questions to test the social route to abstractness.

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Fig. 1: Socialness and social metacognition.
Fig. 2: Processes of social metacognition.
Fig. 3: Socialness, social metacognition and vagueness.
Fig. 4: Determinate and vague abstract concepts.
Fig. 5: Learning of abstract concepts.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all members of the Body, Action, Language (BALLab) group, and especially C. Fini, for discussions and feedback on this topic, and C. de Livio and F. Maggio for discussions and help with Fig. 3. The authors also thank M. Santarelli for the insights and discussion. A.M.B. and C.M. were funded by the project PRIN ASSO (Abstract conceptS and Social interactiOn), protocol no. 2022YJA4TB, and the project PRIN DECO (DEmocratizing COncepts), protocol no. P2022ARREH. L.T. was funded by the projects PRIN WHIM (Prot. 2022LYRT8E) and PRIN PNRR Normativity in Joint Action (Prot. P2022YYRK3).

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  1. Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Anna M. Borghi & Claudia Mazzuca

  2. Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy

    Anna M. Borghi & Luca Tummolini

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A.M.B., C.M. and L.T. researched data for the article. All authors contributed substantially to discussion of the content. A.M.B. wrote the article. All authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.

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Borghi, A.M., Mazzuca, C. & Tummolini, L. The role of social interaction in the formation and use of abstract concepts. Nat Rev Psychol 4, 470–483 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-025-00451-z

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