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Folk Theory of Mind: Conceptual Foundations of Social Cognition
The human ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about mind and behavior is one of the greatest achievements of human evolution and is made possible by a âfolk theory of mindâ â a sophisticated conceptual framework that relates different mental states to each other and connects them to behavior. This chapter examines the nature and elements of this framework and its central functions for social cognition. As a conceptual framework, the folk theory of mind operates prior to any particular conscious or unconscious cognition and provides the âframingâ or interpretation of that cognition. Central to this framing is the concept of intentionality, which distinguishes intentional action (caused by the agentâs intention and decision) from unintentional behavior (caused by internal or external events without the intervention of the agentâs decision). A second important distinction separates publicly observable from publicly unobservable (i.e., mental) events. Together, the two distinctions define the kinds of events in social interaction that people attend to, wonder about, and try to explain. A special focus of this chapter is the powerful tool of behavior explanation, which relies on the folk theory of mind but is also intimately tied to social demands and to the perceiverâs social goals. A full understanding of social cognition must consider the folk theory of mind as the conceptual underpinning of all (conscious and unconscious) perception and thinking about the social world
The relation between language and theory of mind in development and evolution
Considering the close relation between language and theory of mind in development and their tight connection in social behavior, it is no big leap to claim that the two capacities have been related in evolution as well. But what is the exact relation between them? This paper attempts to clear a path toward an answer. I consider several possible relations between the two faculties, bring conceptual arguments and empirical evidence to bear on them, and end up arguing for a version of co-evolution. To model this co-evolution, we must distinguish between different stages or levels of language and theory of mind, which fueled each otherâs evolution in a protracted escalation process
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How Many Dimensions of Mind Perception Really Are There?
Previous research suggests that peopleâs folk conception of themind is organized along a few fundamental dimensions; butstudies disagree on the exact number of those dimensions. Withan expanded item pool of mental capacities, variations ofquestion probes, and numerous judged agents, four studies pro-vide consistent evidence for three dimensions of perceivedmind: Affect (A), Moral and Mental Regulation (M), and Real-ity Interaction (R). The dimensions are not simply bundles ofsemantically related features but capture psychological func-tions of the mindâto engage with its own processes, with otherminds, and with the social and physical world. Under someconditions, two of the three dimensions further divide: Adivides into negative and positive (social) affect, and M dividesinto moral cognition and social cognition. We offer a 20-iteminstrument to measure peopleâs 3- and 5-dimensionalrepresentations of human and other minds
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