What is cognitive agents for social situations?

Cognitive agents for social situations is a concept in personal epistemology: Agents for how to respond in social situations like receiving criticism or giving feedback.

Example: A manager receives harsh feedback in a meeting and feels her face flush. Instead of reacting (defending, deflecting, shutting down), she runs her social agent: acknowledge the input, reappraise the emotion, separate observation from evaluation, then respond with a request for specifics. The entire sequence takes twelve seconds. Without the agent, the same twelve seconds would have produced a defensive remark she regrets by lunch.

This concept is part of Phase 21 (Agent Fundamentals) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for agent fundamentals.