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 “folk theory of mind” — 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 “framing” or interpretation of that cognition. Central to this framing is the concept of intentionality, which distinguishes intentional action (caused by the agent’s intention and decision) from unintentional behavior (caused by internal or external events without the intervention of the agent’s 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 perceiver’s 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 other’s evolution in a protracted escalation process

The moral dimension of intentionality judgments

6 p

How Many Dimensions of Mind Perception Really Are There?

Previous research suggests that people’s 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 mind—to 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 people’s 3- and 5-dimensionalrepresentations of human and other minds

Measuring Human-Robot Trust with the MDMT (Multi-Dimensional Measure of Trust)

We describe the steps of developing the MDMT (Multi-Dimensional Measure of Trust), an intuitive self-report measure of perceived trustworthiness of various agents (human, robot, animal). We summarize the evidence that led to the original four-dimensional form (v1) and to the most recent five-dimensional form (v2). We examine the measure's strengths and limitations and point to further necessary validations.Comment: In SCRITA 2023 Workshop Proceedings (arXiv:2311.05401) held in conjunction with 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication, 08/28-31 2023, Busan (Korea

Social Dominance Orientation: A Personality Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes

Social dominance orientation (SDO), one's degree of preference for inequality among social groups, is introduced. On the basis of social dominance theory, it is shown that (a) men are more social dominance-oriented than women, (b) high-SDO people seek hierarchy-enhancing professional roles and low-SDO people seek hierarchy-attenuating roles, (c) SDO was related to beliefs in a large number of social and political ideologies that support group-based hierarchy (e.g., meritocracy and racism) and to support for policies that have implications for intergroup relations (e.g., war, civil rights, and social programs), including new policies. SDO was distinguished from interpersonal dominance, conservatism, and authoritariansim. SDO was negatively correlated with empathy, tolerance, communality, and altruism. The ramifications of SDO in social context are discussed.African and African American StudiesPsycholog