Ordinary moral thought often commits what social psychologists call 'the fundamental attribution error '. This is the error of ignoring situational factors and overconfidently assuming that distinctive behaviour or patterns of behaviour are due to an agent's distinctive character traits. In fact, there is no evidence that people have character traits in the relevant sense. Since attribution of character traits leads to much evil, we should try to educate ourselves and others to stop doing it.

The social psychology of science is a compelling new area of study whose shape is still emerging. This erudite and innovative book outlines a theoretical and methodological agenda for this new field, and bridges the gap between the individually focused aspects of psychology and the sociological elements of science studies. Presenting a side of social psychology that, until now, has received almost no attention in the social sciences literature, this volume offers the first detailed (...) and comprehensive study of the social psychology of science, complete with a large number of empirical and theoretical examples. The volume's introductory section provides a detailed analysis of how modern social psychology might apply to the study of science. Chapters show how to analyze science in terms of social cognition, attribution theory, attitudes and attitude change, social motivation, social influence and social conformity, and intergroup relations, weaving extensive illustrations from the science studies literature into the theoretical analysis. The nature and role of experimentation are discussed, as are metaanalytic methods for summarizing the results of multiple studies. Ways to facilitate the generalization of causal inferences from experimental work are also examined. The book focuses on such topics as interactions among small groups of scientists, and the impact of social motivation, influence, and conformity on scientific work. Also covered are scientists' responses to ethical issues in research, differences in cognitive style distribution, creativity in research and development, and the sociologists's view of the social psychology of science and technology. In addition, the book provides two annotated bibliographies, one on the philosophy of science and the other on social psychology, to guide readers in both disciplines to salient recent works. Valuable to the entire science studies community, this text will be of special interest to philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and historians of science interested in the nature of knowledge development in science. Because of its novel application of social psychological theories and methods, this book will be useful as a primary text or a secondary text in courses on science studies in psychology, sociology, or philosophy departments. (shrink)

Mainstream social psychology focuses on how people characteristically violate norms of action through social misbehaviors such as conformity with false majority judgments, destructive obedience, and failures to help those in need. Likewise, they are seen to violate norms of reasoning through cognitive errors such as misuse of social information, self-enhancement, and an over-readiness to attribute dispositional characteristics. The causes of this negative research emphasis include the apparent informativeness of norm violation, the status of good behavior and (...) judgment as unconfirmable null hypotheses, and the allure of counter-intuitive findings. The shortcomings of this orientation include frequently erroneous imputations of error, findings of mutually contradictory errors, incoherent interpretations of error, an inability to explain the sources of behavioral or cognitive achievement, and the inhibition of generalized theory. Possible remedies include increased attention to the complete range of behavior and judgmental accomplishment, analytic reforms emphasizing effect sizes and Bayesian inference, and a theoretical paradigm able to account for both the sources of accomplishment and of error. A more balanced social psychology would yield not only a more positive view of human nature, but also an improved understanding of the bases of good behavior and accurate judgment, coherent explanations of occasional lapses, and theoretically grounded suggestions for improvement. Key Words: Bayesian inference; biases; normative models; personality; positive psychology; rationality; reasoning; social behavior; social judgment; social psychology. (shrink)

The flaws in social psychological research pointed out by Cesario have societal costs. These include ignoring crucial base rates thereby degrading the effectiveness of policy decisions, generalizing the conclusions derived from experiments on non-professionals thereby distorting the public's view of professional law enforcement personnel, questionable accusations of racism, and mis-attributions of the causes of racial differences in behavior.

In the field of psychology, the topic of everyday life as a specific subject of inquiry has been afforded little attention. Indeed, everyday life has recently been analyzed mainly in psychological studies that examine people's ways of behaving and thinking when they act in situations termed as mundane and ordinary. These studies are mainly carried out in two fields of social psychology which we refer to in general terms as Social Cognition and Social Representation Theory. (...) The aim of this paper is to examine how both these fields treat some of the features commonly attributed to everyday life. In particular, the features of familiarization, continuity and stability over time and automaticity are discussed in order to try to figure out meeting points between the two fields mentioned. (shrink)

In the field of psychology, the topic of everyday life as a specific subject of inquiry has been afforded little attention. Indeed, everyday life has recently been analyzed mainly in psychological studies that examine people's ways of behaving and thinking when they act in situations termed as mundane and ordinary. These studies are mainly carried out in two fields of social psychology which we refer to in general terms as Social Cognition and Social Representation Theory. (...) The aim of this paper is to examine how both these fields treat some of the features commonly attributed to everyday life. In particular, the features of familiarization, continuity and stability over time and automaticity are discussed in order to try to figure out meeting points between the two fields mentioned. (shrink)

The author indicates that in his discussion (see record 1926-02981-001), he made a mistake in quoting from Professor Small's article in the American Journal of Sociology, of attributing to him the word 'poach,' inadvertently taking it from a private letter from Professor Smalls on the same subject. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The frequency of the use of deception in American psychological research was studied by reviewing articles from journals in personality and social psychology from 1921 to 1994. Deception was used rarely during the developmental years of social psychology into the 1930s, then grew gradually and irregularly until the 1950s. Between the 1950s and 1970s the use of deception increased significantly. This increase is attributed to changes in experimental methods, the popularity of realistic impact experiments, and the (...) influence of cognitive dissonance theory. Since 1980 there appears to have been a decrease in the use of deception as compared to previous decades which is related to changes in theory, methods, ethical standards, and federal regulation of research. (shrink)

This study contributes to the growing literature on individual-level outcomes of corporate social responsibility. Employing a sample of 339 subordinate–supervisor dyads, we explored the differential impact of CSR attributions on employees’ creative performance in the telecom industry. We also introduced and tested the role of psychological safety as a mediator underlying this relationship. The results indicate that although intrinsic CSR attributions are not directly related to creative performance, extrinsic CSR attributions have a significant negative effect on creative performance. We (...) also found that psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between intrinsic CSR and creative performance and the negative relationship between extrinsic CSR and creative performance. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed. (shrink)

This study contributes to the growing literature on individual-level outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Employing a sample of 339 subordinate–supervisor dyads, we explored the differential impact of CSR attributions on employees’ creative performance in the telecom industry. We also introduced and tested the role of psychological safety as a mediator underlying this relationship. The results indicate that although intrinsic CSR attributions are not directly related to creative performance, extrinsic CSR attributions have a significant negative effect on creative performance. (...) We also found that psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between intrinsic CSR and creative performance and the negative relationship between extrinsic CSR and creative performance. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed. (shrink)

Some eliminativists have predicted that a developed neuroscience will eradicate the principles and theoretical kinds (belief, desire, etc.) implicit in our ordinary practices of mental state attribution. Prevailing defenses of common-sense psychology infer its basic integrity from its familiarity and instrumental success in everyday social commerce. Such common-sense defenses charge that eliminativist arguments are self-defeating in their folk psychological appeal to the belief that eliminativism is true. I argue that eliminativism is untouched by this simple charge of (...) inconsistency, and introduce a different dialectical strategy for arguing against the eliminativist. In keeping with the naturalistic trend in the sociology and philosophy of science, I show that neuroscientists routinely rely on folk psychological procedures of intentional state attribution in applying epistemically reliable standards of scientific evaluation. These scientific contexts place ordinary procedures of attribution under greater stress, producing evidence of folk psychological success that is less equivocal than the evidence in mundane settings. Therefore, the dependence of science on folk psychology, when combined with an independently plausible explanatory constraint on reduction and an independently motivated notion of theoretical stress, allows us to reconstitute the charge of (neurophilic) eliminativist inconsistency in a more sophisticated form. (shrink)

Theory theory and simulation theory share the assumption that mental states are unobservable, such that mental state attribution requires an extra psychological step beyond perception. Phenomenologists deny this, contending that we can directly perceive people's mental states. Here I evaluate objections to theory theory and simulation theory as accounts of everyday social perception offered by Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher. I agree that their phenomenological claims have bite at the personal level, distinguishing direct social perception from conscious (...) theorizing and simulation. Their appeals to phenomenology and other arguments do not, however, rule out theory theory or simulation theory as accounts of the sub-personal processes underlying social perception. While I here remain uncommitted about the plausibility of sub-personal theorizing and simulation, I argue that phenomenologists must do more in order to reject these accounts. (shrink)

When faced with adverse circumstances, there may be a tendency for individuals, agencies, and governments to search for a target to assign blame. Our focus will be on the novel coronavirus outbreak, where racial groups, political parties, countries, and minorities have been blamed for spreading, producing or creating the virus. Blame—here defined as attributing causality, responsibility, intent, or foresight to someone/something for a fault or wrong—has already begun to damage modern society and medical practice in the context of the COVID-19 (...) outbreak. Evidence from past and current pandemics suggest that this tendency to seek blame affects international relations, promotes unwarranted devaluation of health professionals, and prompts a spike of racism and discrimination. By drawing on social and cognitive psychology theories, we provide a framework that helps to understand the effect of blame in pandemics, when people blame, whom they blame, and how blame detrimentally affects the COVID-19 response. Ultimately, we provide a path to inform health messaging to reduce blaming tendencies, based on social psychological principles for health communication. (shrink)

Character-trait attribution is an important component of everyday social cognition that has until recently received insufficient attention in traditional accounts of folk psychology. In this paper, I consider how the case of character-trait attribution fits into the debate between mindreading-based and broadly ‘pluralistic’ approaches to folk psychology. Contrary to the arguments of some pluralists, I argue that the evidence on trait understanding does not show that it is a distinct, non-mentalistic mode of folk-psychological reasoning, but (...) rather suggests that traits are ordinarily understood as mentalistic dispositions. I also examine several ways in which trait attribution might also serve regulative, ‘mindshaping’ functions by promoting predictable norm-governed behavior, and argue that mindreading plays several important roles in these cases as well. I conclude that an appreciation of the relationship between trait attribution and mindreading is crucial to understanding the role it plays in our folk psychology. (shrink)

In spite of extensive research on theory of mind, lay theories about the unconscious have scarcely been investigated. Three questionnaire studies totaling 689 participants, examined to what extent they thought that a range of psychological processes could be unconscious. It was found that people are less willing to countenance unconscious processes in themselves than in others, regardless of the time period considered – present, past or future. This is especially true when specific experience-like situations are envisioned, as opposed to considering (...) the question in abstract or generic terms. In addition, the notion of unconscious psychological processes is resisted for certain domains in particular: intending, sensing, believing, and thinking. We interpret this pattern by positing the existence of two conceptions about the unconscious that are differentially applied according to circumstances: one originating in prevalent social representations about the unconscious, the other based on self-model of the person as an intentional actor. (shrink)

In the context of animal cognitive research, anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of uniquely human mental characteristics to animals. Those who worry about anthropomorphism in research, however, are immediately confronted with the question of which properties are uniquely human. One might think that researchers must first hypothesize the existence of a feature in an animal before they can, with warrant, claim that the property is uniquely human. But all too often, this isn't the approach. Rather, there is an (...) a priori argument against attributing some properties to animals. Which features are thought to be uniquely human on a priori grounds? The class can be quite large, including psychological states such as beliefs and desires, personality traits such as confidence or timidity, emotions such as happiness or anger, social organizational properties such as culture or friendship, moral behavior such as punishment or rape. For convenience, I will refer to the members of the class as "psychological properties". One critic includes feeling, purpose, intentionality, consciousness, and even cognition in his list of psychological properties that are incorrectly attributed to animals (Kennedy 1992). Among the critics, there is quite a bit of disagreement about what counts as an anthropomorphic attribution, and this alone should raise questions about the charge. We can identify two different questions about the practice of attributing psychological properties to animals within a scientific context. First we can ask whether it is scientifically respectable to examine questions about the mental, psychological, cultural, etc. states of animals. Those who bemoan anthropomorphism think that we ought not even ask such questions. I will look at the worries about asking the question, and argue that there is no special problem with it. The second question arises with an affirmative answer to the first. Given that it is scientifically respectable to examine whether an animal has a psychological property, there must be some scientifically respectable method for doing the examination.. (shrink)

In three experiments we studied lay observers’ attributions of responsibility for an antisocial act (homicide). We systematically varied both the degree to which the action was coerced by external circumstances and the degree to which the actor endorsed and accepted ownership of the act, a psychological state that philosophers have termed ‘identification’. Our findings with respect to identification were highly consistent. The more an actor was identified with an action, the more likely observers were to assign responsibility to the actor, (...) even when the action was performed under constraints so powerful that no other behavioral option was available. Our findings indicate that social cognition involving assignment of responsibility for an action is a more complex process than previous research has indicated. It would appear that laypersons’ judgments of moral responsibility may, in some circumstances, accord with philosophical views in which freedom and determinism are regarded to be compatible. (shrink)

Biology and Philosophy, forthcoming. Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable (...) to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well as personality. I describe how instruments such as the Child Behavior Checklist, which relies on intersubjective expert opinion, could be modified to assess other species subjects. The measures are validated via the accuracy of the predictions that are derived, which is an example of the functionality of attribution. I respond to theoretical criticisms against use of this method, and argue that if the method counts as good science for infant cognition research, then it should count as good science for animal cognition research as well. Correspondingly, if the method doesn’t count as good science for animal cognition research, then we must be very skeptical of its use with nonverbal humans. (shrink)

Prior research has found attributions to mediate the relationship between the elements of corporate social responsibility activities and consumer responses to firms; however, the question of what variables determine consumer attributions of CSR remains partially unaddressed. This article analyzes why consumers make attributions of CSR that are either positive, or negative. The results obtained from two empirical studies indicate that company–cause fit, corporate ability, and interpersonal trust have a positive influence on the motives that consumers attribute to CSR, whereas (...) corporate hypocrisy has a negative effect. This research contributes to our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying impactful consumer judgments and provides guidance for organizations in responding to such evaluations. (shrink)

In this commentary on Anneli Jefferson’s Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders? I endorse her capacitarian approach to responsibility but suggest that the effects of at least some mental/brain disorders on the agent’s psychology show that we cannot neatly separate the epistemic condition from the control condition when assessing agential capacity. I then discuss the labeling issue in the context of rival attributionist accounts of responsibility which hold that agents are responsible if their actions are attributable to them. The incorporation (...) of mental disorders into identity through social processes may open agents with mental or brain disorders open to unfair blame. However, we cannot fully understand the effects of the disorders on agential capacity without closely attending to the social environment that shapes the way the disorder is conceived, enacted, perceived, and responded to over time. (shrink)

Five experiments demonstrate the central role of knowledge attributions in social evaluations. In Experiments 1–3, we manipulated whether an agent believes, is certain of, or knows a true proposition and asked people to rate whether the agent should perform a variety of actions. We found that knowledge, more so than belief or certainty, leads people to judge that the agent should act. In Experiments 4–5, we investigated whether attributions of knowledge or certainty can explain an important finding on how (...) people act based on statistical evidence, known as “the Wells effect”. We found that knowledge attributions, but not certainty attributions, mediate this effect on decision making. 2018 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

One of the central explananda in the debate on social cognition is the interpretation of other people in terms of reasons for action. There is a growing dissatisfaction among participants in the debate concerning the descriptive adequacy of the traditional belief-desire model of action interpretation. Applying this model as an explanatory model at the subpersonal level threatens to leave the original explanandum largely unarticulated. Against this background we show how Brandom’s deontic scorekeeping model can be used as a valuable (...) descriptive tool for making folk psychology explicit. Following Brandom’s non-formalist and non-mentalistic account of reason discourse, we suggest that the process of making sense of others is best captured as proceeding from a ‘factive’ baseline. According to this picture the ascription of beliefs and desires is not the default interpretation strategy, but rather the result of prior scaffolding of the agent’s deontic score. We close by discussing Brandom’s model in the light of empirical findings on the ontogeny of reason attribution. (shrink)

In the prospectus for his later work pronounced in 1952, Merleau-Ponty announced that his move beyond the phenomenological to the ontological level of analysis is motivated by issues of sociality, notably communication with others.' I propose to interrogate this priority attributed by the author to this interpersonal bond in his reflections on corporeality in general, marking a departure from The Structure of Behavior and The Phenomenology of Perception, which privileged the starting point of consciousness and the body proper. My interest (...) lies particularly in exposing the psychological sources of Merleau-Ponty's thinking about the primacy of sociality. Referring to his lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy, which he delivered as Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1949-52,2 I will develop the contention that the developmental psychology of child sociality significantly informed his understanding of relations between self and other laid out in the later texts, and henceforth informed also his conception of the flesh. Specifically, the psychological hypotheses about the anonymous and fusional form initially taken by human sociality appears to play a determining role in his conception of interpersonal life formulated on the ontological plane. I will then point to the internal tensions involved in the theory of sociality based on the thesis of anonymity and disclose an alternative theoretical account, which has the merit of preserving the advantages of the anonymity thesis while avoiding its drawbacks; it also facilitates continued dialogue between Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and recent developmental psychology. (shrink)

A brief account is given of Pyrrhonian scepticism, as portrayed by Sextus Empiricus. This scepticism differs significantly from the views commonly attributed to 'the sceptic' which take scepticism to be a view or philosophical position to the effect that there can be no knowledge. The Pyrrhonist makes no philosophical assertions, because he does not find the arguments in favor of any position to be decisively stronger than the arguments against. Objections to scepticism, for instance that the sceptic cannot consistently show (...) trust and confidence, that he must ignore the obvious achievements of science, and that he cannot distinguish between appearance and reality, are found to be indecisive in the case of Pyrrhonism. After submitting Pyrrhonism to criteria of positive mental health, the author concludes by suggesting there are cases where a sceptical bent of mind should be encouraged. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the interrelated topics of stereotype threat and attributional ambiguity as they relate to gender and gender identity. The former has become an emerging topic in feminist philosophy and has spawned a tremendous amount of research in social psychology and elsewhere. But the discussion, at least in how it connects to gender, is incomplete: the focus is only on cisgender women and their experiences. By considering trans women's experiences of stereotype threat and attributional ambiguity, (...) we gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena and their problematic effects. (shrink)

The purpose of this multi-study article was to investigate the roles of adaptability and social support in predicting a variety of psychological outcomes. Data were collected from Year 12 college students, university students, and non-studying members of the general public. Findings showed that, beyond variance attributable to social support, adaptability made a significant independent contribution to psychological wellbeing and psychological distress across all studies. Beyond the effects of adaptability, social support was found to make a significant independent (...) contribution to most wellbeing outcomes. In a multi-group analysis comparing predictors of psychological wellbeing in university students and non-studying adults, where the same outcome measures were used, it was found that adaptability played a stronger role for university students, whereas social support played a stronger role for non-studying adults. Finally, there was no evidence of an interaction between adaptability and social support predicting psychological outcomes—adaptability and social support operated as independent main effects. These findings demonstrate the importance of adaptability and social support in uniquely predicting psychological wellbeing in different sample groups. It is argued here that these two factors, should be given greater consideration in discussions of psychological wellbeing, and are relevant to psychological wellbeing at different major developmental life stages. (shrink)

Testimonial injustices occur when individuals from particular social groups are systematically and persistently given less credibility in their claims merely because of their group identity. Recent “pluralistic” approaches to folk psychology, by taking into account the role of stereotypes in how we understand others, have the power to explain how and why cases of testimonial injustice occur. If how we make sense of others’ behavior depends on assumptions about how individuals from certain groups think and act, this can (...) explain why speakers are given different degrees of credibility depending on their group identity. For example, if people assume that women are more emotional than men, they will systematically give less credibility to women’s claims. This explanation involves three empirical claims: people assume that women are more emotional than men, people assume that emotionality hinders credibility, and people give less credibility to women’s claims. While extant studies provide some support for and, no study to date has directly tested. In two different studies, we tested all these three claims. The results from both studies provide support for, as we found significant negative correlations between emotionality and credibility attributions. However, in contrast to what some accounts of folk psychology posit, we did not find any significant difference in people’s attributions of emotionality and credibility towards women versus men speakers. We hope that our studies here pave the way for further empirical studies testing the phenomenon of testimonial injustice in a context-sensitive way, in order to have a better understanding of the conditions in which testimonial injustices are likely to happen. (shrink)

Psychological Metaphysics is an exploration of the most basic and important assumptions in the psychological construction of reality, with the aim of showing what they are, how they originate, and what they are there for. Peter White proposes that people basically understand causation in terms of stable, special powers of things operating to produce effects under suitable conditions. This underpins an analysis of people's understanding of causal processes in the physical world, and of human action. In making a radical break (...) with the Heiderian tradition, Psychological Metaphysics suggests that causal attribution is in the service of the person's practical concerns and any interest in accuracy or understanding is subservient to this. Indeed, a notion of regularity in the world is of no more than minor importance, and social cognition is not a matter of cognitive mechanisms or processes but of cultural ways of thinking imposed upon tacit, unquestioned, universalassumptions. Incorporating not only research and theory in social cognition and developmental psychology, but also philosophy and the history of ideas, Psychological Metaphysics will be challenging to everyone interested in how we try to understand the world. (shrink)

Psychology is once again in the course of rapid change in both metaphysics and method. Unfortunately recent studies of human action by philosophers have contributed less to this movement than they might. Putting the matter very crudely the failure of much contemporary action theory to influence the human sciences can be attributed to an adherence to an outmoded philosophy of science and an outdated theory of causation. I shall be dealing with only one specific example of recent action theory (...) in this paper, that of Davidson, but its shortcomings are fairly typical of the approach. (shrink)

Psychology is once again in the course of rapid change in both metaphysics and method. Unfortunately recent studies of human action by philosophers have contributed less to this movement than they might. Putting the matter very crudely the failure of much contemporary action theory to influence the human sciences can be attributed to an adherence to an outmoded philosophy of science and an outdated theory of causation. I shall be dealing with only one specific example of recent action theory (...) in this paper, that of Davidson, but its shortcomings are fairly typical of the approach. (shrink)

Psychological essentialism is the hypothesis that humans represent some categories as having an underlying essence that unifies members of a category and is causally responsible for their typical attributes and behaviors. Throughout the past several decades, psychological essentialism has emerged as an extremely active area of research in cognitive science. More recently, it has also attracted attention from philosophers, who put the empirical results to use in many different philosophical areas, ranging from philosophy of mind and cognitive science to (...) class='Hi'>social philosophy. This article aims to give philosophers who are new to the topic an overview of the key empirical findings surrounding psychological essentialism, and some of the ways the hypothesis and its related findings have been discussed, extended, and applied in philosophical research. (shrink)

Attribution theory has played a major role in social-psychological research. Unfortunately, the term attribution is ambiguous. According to one meaning, forming an attribution is making a dispositional (trait) inference from behavior; according to another meaning, forming an attribution is giving an explanation (especially of behavior). The focus of this paper is on the latter phenomenon of behavior explanations. In particular, I discuss a new theory of explanation that provides an alternative to classic attribution theory (...) as it dominates the textbooks and handbooks—which is typically as a version of Kelley’s (1967) model of attribution as covariation detection. I begin with a brief critique of this theory and, out of this critique, develop a list of requirements that an improved theory has to meet. I then introduce the new theory, report empirical data in its support, and apply it to a number of psychological phenomena. I finally conclude with an assessment of how much progress we have made in understanding behavior explanations and what has yet to be learned. (shrink)

This article is concerned with social and interactional processes that simplify pragmatic acts of intention attribution. The empirical focus is a series of interactions among DeafBlind people in Seattle, Washington, where pointing signs are used to individuate objects of reference in the im-mediate environment. Most members of this community are born deaf and slowly become blind. They come to Seattle using Visual American Sign Language, which has emerged and developed in a field organized around visual modes of access. (...) However, as vision deteriorates, links be-tween deictic signs and the present, remembered, or imagined environment erode in idiosyncratic ways across the community of language-users, and it becomes increasingly difficult for partici-pants to converge on objects of reference. In the past, DeafBlind people have addressed this problem by relying on sighted interpreters. Under the influence of the recent “pro-tactile” movement, they have turned instead to one another to find new solutions to their referential prob-lems. Drawing on analyses of 120 hours of videorecorded interaction and language-use, detailed fieldnotes collected during twelve months of sustained anthropological fieldwork, and more than 15 years of involvement in this community in a range of capacities, I show how DeafBlind peo-ple are generating new and reciprocal modes of access to their environment, and how this pro-cess is aligning language with context in novel ways. I propose two mechanisms that can account for this process: deictic integration and embedding in the social field. I argue that together, these interactional and social mechanisms yield a deictic system set to retrieve a restricted range of values from the extra-linguistic context, thereby attenuating the cognitive demands of intention-attribution and narrowing the gap between DeafBlind minds. (shrink)

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not (...) identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and explain behavior through appeal to personality traits that the target wouldn't endorse, and so could not serve as the target's reasons. I conclude by suggesting that our folk psychology includes the notion that some behavior is explained by personality traits—who the person is—rather than by beliefs and desires—what the person thinks. Consequences of this view for the debate between simulation theory and theory theory, as well as the debate on chimpanzee theory of mind are discussed. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from conversation analysis, discursive psychology and social psychology, this article describes some interactional features of two celebrity TV confessionals and the resources used by the TV interviewers and celebrity guests to attribute, accept or deny responsibility for their transgressions. The analytic interest lies in how confessions are locally and interactionally managed, that is, how ‘doing confessing’ is achieved in the television interview context. We show how the host’s opening turn constrains the celebrity guest’s contribution (...) and secures overt admission of guilt, while simultaneously inviting the celebrity guest to tell their side of the story. We also show how celebrity guests produce descriptions which minimize the extent and severity of their transgressions, reduce agency and transform the character of their transgression. In doing so, we argue that celebrity interviewees can convey mitigations and extenuations which diminish the extent of their responsibility – calling into question the very nature of their confession. We propose that our findings demonstrate the hybrid nature of interviewing in the celebrity TV confessional and contribute to our understanding of how ‘doing confessing’ in the public eye is discursively and interactionally negotiated. (shrink)

In The Tragedy of the Self, Gary F. Greif attributes social violence and individual isolation to a contemporary neglect of a fundamental human need for support that only human culture and interaction can promote and reinforce. Greif bases this interpretation on the works of Heinz Kohut, a psychoanalyst who by degrees transformed Freud's theory of the instincts into a theory of the self. Kohut maintains that every individual fundamentally requires continual human support in order to live with confidence and (...) hope. Greif introduces Kohut's understanding of the nature, development, and disintegration of the self, analyzes modern and contemporary assumptions regarding the individualistic, anti-social nature of humans, and concludes that contemporary societal assumptions regarding the acceptance of individualism reflect and perpetuate a tragic human condition. Greif argues that the inability of the self to experience a human, fulfilling life is a tragedy intensified by a century of economic and cultural forces promoting social antagonism. A unique and stimulating book, The Tragedy of the Self will appeal to professionals in psychoanalytic psychology, self-psychology, and philosophy as well as academics and students in the Humanities and Social Sciences. (shrink)

What are the main features that influence our attribution of moral responsibility? It is widely accepted that there are various factors which strongly influence our moral judgments, such as the agent’s intentions, the consequences of the action, the causal involvement of the agent, and the agent’s freedom and ability to do otherwise. In this paper, we argue that this picture is incomplete: We argue that social roles are an additional key factor that is radically underestimated in the extant (...) literature. We will present an experiment to support this claim. (shrink)

How do people’s social roles change others’ perceptions of their intentions to cause harm? Three preregistered vignette-based experiments (N = 788) manipulated the social role of someone causing harm and measured how intentional people thought the harm was. Results indicate that people judge harmful consequences as intentional when they think the actor unjustifiably caused harm. Social roles were shown to alter intention judgments by making people responsible for preventing harm (thereby endering the harm as an intentional neglect (...) of one’s responsibilities) or for causing the harm (thereby excusing it as an unintentional byproduct of the role). Additionally, Experiment 3 conceptually replicated and moderated the side-effect effect—revealing that people think harmful side effects are intentional when the harm is unjustified but not when a role’s responsibility justifies it. We discuss the importance of social information—including roles—in how people judge others’ intentions. (shrink)

The Attributes of Adulthood Recognised by Adolescents and Adults The article has made an attempt to identify the ways in which adolescents and adults see the process of "transitioning into adulthood" and what attributes they think are necessary for an adult person to possess. The problem of "becoming an adult" has been portrayed in the broader context of parent-adolescent relation development. Research by Smetana has cast some light on a possible source of the conflict: differences in understanding social situations (...) and the role of authority figures by adolescents and their parents. In contemporary society there are no unquestionable determinants of adulthood, a fact very conducive to intergenerational conflict. In the current study two groups of adolescents and a group of adults were examined using a questionnaire by J. J. Arnett The Attributes of Adulthood. The results show marked uniformity among subjects as to the choice of "adulthood" characteristics. They point to events such as reaching a certain age, completing one's education or starting a family as the least important in transitioning to adolescence. The most popular categories, regardless of age, included subjective and psychological characteristics, such as financial independence, the ability to accept and fulfil new social roles or accepting responsibility for the consequences of one's actions. Reference to such ambiguous attributes can lead to parents and adolescents interpreting them differently and thus contribute to misunderstanding and conflict in parent-child relations. (shrink)

Theories of epistemically justified belief have long assumed individualism. In its extreme, or Lockean, form individualism rules out justified belief on testimony by insisting that a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she possesses first-hand justification for it. The skeptical consequences of extreme individualism have led many to adopt a milder version, attributable to Hume, on which a subject is justified in believing a proposition only if he or she is justified in believing that there (...) is testimony in favor of the proposition deriving from a reliable source. I argue that this Humean individualism also leads to skepticism in a wide range of cases; it makes it impossible for a layperson to be justified on expert testimony. In addition, I argue that the apparent motivation for the Humean view, an insistence on intellectual autonomy in justification, does not succeed in motivating it. I then explore the contours of a collectivist view of justification on testimony, with special attention to the place of a subject's intellectual autonomy in such justification. I try to bring empirical results of the psychology of persuasion to bear on the epistemological issues. (shrink)

According to both the traditional model of folk psychology and the social intelligence hypothesis, our folk psychological notions of belief and desire developed in order to make better predictions of behavior, and the fundamental role for our folk psychological notions of belief and desire are for making more accurate predictions of behavior (than predictions made without appeal to folk psychological notions). My strategy in this paper is to show that these claims are false. I argue that we need (...) not appeal to mental states to make predictions of many behaviors, and I will offer a positive account of how we might go about predicting intentional behavior. Finally, I suggest that taken together, the critique of traditional folk psychology along with the alternative account of our predictive practices leads to a new hypothesis. While it may be true that mental state concepts developed in response to social-environmental pressures, I suggest that this pressure was more likely the need to explain behavior, rather than the need to predict it. (shrink)

Tax compliance is a concern to governments around the world. Prior research (Alm, J. and I. Sanchez: 1995, KYKLOS 48, 3–19) has attributed unexplained inter-country differences in compliance rates to differences in social norms. Economics researchers studying tax compliance in the United States (U.S.) (see for example J. Andreoni et al.: 1998, Journal of Economic Literature 36, 818–860) have called for more attention to social (as opposed to economic) influences on tax compliance. In this study, we extend this (...) prior research by explicitly examining the role of social norms [Cialdini, R. and M. Trost: 1998, The Handbook of Social Psychology (Oxford University Press, New York)] on tax compliance in three different countries. We test our research hypotheses using a hypothetical compliance scenario, which was administered in Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. There were differences in compliance rates and social norms among the three countries. Factor analysis of the social norm questions identified three distinct social norm constructs. Two of these factors were significant in explaining tax compliance behavior. The first and most influential factor was taxpayers’ own personal moral beliefs, along with the beliefs of those close to them (e.g., friends and important others). The second significant factor represented societal views of proper behavior. We conclude that social norms help to explain tax compliance intentions and why tax compliance rates are higher than would be predicted by strictly economic models. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from (...) studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky. How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? (Annette Baier, The Commons of the Mind, p. 5). The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well (Wittgenstein, On Certainty§ 287). The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 51). From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 30). (shrink)

Social desirability bias is a pervasive measurement challenge in the social sciences and survey research. More clarity is needed to understand the performance of social desirability scales in diverse groups, contexts, and cultures. The present study aims to contribute to the international literature on social desirability measurement by examining the psychometric performance of a short version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale in a nationally representative sample of teachers in Kazakhstan. A total of 2,461 Kazakhstani (...) teachers completed the MCSDS – Form C in their language of choice. The results failed to support the theoretical unidimensionality of the original scale. Instead, the results of Random Intercept Item Factor Analysis model suggest that the scale answers depend more on the method factor rather than the substantial factor that represents SDB. In addition, an alternative explanation indicates that the scale seems better suited to measuring two SDB correlated factors: attribution and denial. Internal consistency coefficients demonstrated unsatisfactory reliability scores for the two factors. The Kazakhstani version of the MCSDS – Form C was invariant across geographic location, language, and partially across age groups. However, no measurement invariance was demonstrated for gender. Despite these limitations, the analysis of the Kazakhstani version of the MCSDS – Form C presented in this study constitutes a first step in facilitating further research and measurement of SDB in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and other collectivist countries. (shrink)

I discuss the possibility that there is no intrinsic unity to the capacities which are bundled under the label "folk psychology". Cooperative skills, attributional skills, and predictive skills may be scattered as parts of other non--psychological capacities. I discuss how some forms of social life bring these different skills together. I end with some remarks on how abilities that are not unified in their essential mechanisms may still form a rough practical unity. (Remark: the paper is conjectural. It (...) describes a possibility to take seriously rather than a conclusion of which I am convinced.). (shrink)