Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:21:53.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theory of mind in context: Mental-state representations for social evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Brandon M. Woo ,
Enda Tan  and
J. Kiley Hamlin Open the ORCID record for J. Kiley Hamlin [Opens in a new window]
Brandon M. Woo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138, USA; [email protected]://bmwoo.github.io/
Enda Tan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CanadaV6T 1Z4. [email protected], [email protected]://cic.psych.ubc.ca/
J. Kiley Hamlin
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CanadaV6T 1Z4. [email protected], [email protected]://cic.psych.ubc.ca/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whereas Phillips and colleagues argue that knowledge representations are more basic than belief representations, we argue that an accurate analysis of what is fundamental to theory of mind may depend crucially on the context in which mental-state reasoning occurs. Specifically, we call for increased study of the developmental trajectory of mental-state reasoning within socially evaluative contexts.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e176
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chandler, M., Fritz, A. S., & Hala, S. (1989). Small-scale deceit: Deception as a marker of two-, three-, and four-year-olds' early theories of mind. Child Development, 60, 1263–1277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. In Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 163–228). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hamlin, J. K. (2013). Failed attempts to help and harm: Intention versus outcome in preverbal infants’ social evaluations. Cognition, 128(3), 451–474.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamlin, J. K., Ullman, T., Tenenbaum, J., Goodman, N., & Baker, C. (2013). The mentalistic basis of core social cognition: Experiments in preverbal infants and a computational model. Developmental Science, 16(2), 209–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamlin, J. K., & Wynn, K. (2011). Young infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others. Cognitive Development, 26(1), 30–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2010). Three-month-olds show a negativity bias in their social evaluations. Developmental Science, 13(6), 923–929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, J. W., & Cushman, F. (2015). To punish or to leave: Distinct cognitive processes underlie partner control and partner choice behaviors. PLOS ONE, 10(4), e0125193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poulin-Dubois, D., Rakoczy, H., Burnside, K., Crivello, C., Dörrenberg, S., Edwards, K., … Perner, J. (2018). Do infants understand false beliefs? We don't know yet–a commentary on Baillargeon, Buttelmann and Southgate's commentary. Cognitive Development, 48, 302–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, G., & Saxe, R. (2020). Learning in infancy is active, endogenously motivated, and depends on the prefrontal cortices. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommerville, J. A., Woodward, A. L., & Needham, A. (2005). Action experience alters 3-month-old infants' perception of others' actions. Cognition, 96(1), B1–B11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., Melis, A. P., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., & Herrmann, E. (2012). Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: The interdependence hypothesis. Current Anthropology, 53, 673–692.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsoi, L., Hamlin, J. K., Waytz, A., Baron, A. S., & Young, L. (2020) False belief understanding for negative versus positive interactions in children and adults. https://moralitylab.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tsoi_MeanNiceAnne_children_adults.pdf.Google Scholar
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72(3), 655–684.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woo, B. M., & Spelke, E. (2020). Infants' social evaluations depend on the intentions of agents who act on false beliefs. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/eczgp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woo, B. M., Steckler, C. M., Le, D. T., & Hamlin, J. K. (2017). Social evaluation of intentional, truly accidental, and negligently accidental helpers and harmers by 10-month-old infants. Cognition, 168, 154–163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Young, L., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., & Saxe, R. (2007). The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and moral judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(20), 8235–8240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed