The paper comprehensively describes the issue of the relationship between social cognition and social problems.

A brief excursion into the history of social study in social psychology in this country and abroad is reviewed. The methodology of the psychology of social cognition can be used both for explaining the individual elements of the emerging problems, and for the understanding of the whole process. The essence of ideas by Wundt, K. Levin, A. Teshfel, P.A. Sorokin, V.M. Bekhterev, L.S. Vygotsky and other related problems of social psychology are presented. Current prospects of social cognition in the study of social problems are outlined. The emergence of a new specific industry of social psychology, identified as the psychology of social cognition, is mentioned. Its challenges and opportunities, the development of methods for the study of social problems in today’s theory of social representations by S. Moscovici are presented.

Relevance of social study today is shown. The author notes that a strong need to address significant (global) problems in the society always arises in a period of radical change, social transformations, and from this point of view, the period of reform in Russia is a situation that cries out for the need to study the existing social problems.