Lecture 9 Flashcards
What is theory of mind?
Why are evolutionary psychologists concerned with it?
Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states to others.
Evolutionary psychologists are concerned with it as it could be considered a mental module - it’s automatic, you can’t suppress it, it’s independent of other information and has anatomical pin points. Also, ToM seems to have been important in the evolution of language and culture. For example, without theory of mind, language would be impaired as they cooperate together to understand the concept of others’ experiences, e.g. he said she said.
Discuss ToM and levels of intentionality
Dennet argued that there are orders of intentionality that get more complex through the levels. We have a limit on the amount of levels we can comprehend before we get confused. Research has shown the limit is 4th order. When there are causal links that don’t involve people we can comprehend up to 6th order. Therefore, the limit is with mental states specifically.
Here is an example of the orders: I think (1st order) that Daniel believes (2nd order) that Mark hopes (3rd order) that Emma fancies (4th order) Harry. This can go on and on. The Sally Ann test only tests for 2nd order of intentionality.
Discuss the developmental viewpoint on ToM
Developmental psychologists focus on when and how ToM develops. They also explore how it is tied to other cognitive capacities like joint attention. Research has shown that it develops between the ages of 4 and 5. However, false belief tasks may not be valid as they require a high level of language comprehension and some children can pass parts of this task at younger ages. Children pass ToM when it’s tested non-verbally.
What is Baron Cohen’s ToM model?
We have 2 detectors; the intentionality detector and the eye direction detector (humans are especially good as we have evolved to have a lot of white in our eyes making it easier to see the direction people are looking). These work together to result in shared attention (useful from evolutionary viewpoints as you are understanding what has attracted the other person’s attention). Gaze following is also found among other animals like chimps showing it’s a deep rooted mechanism. Baron Cohen argued that ToM is an extension of shared attention as you are understand that the other person is experiencing something different. This is a modular view; eye direction module, intentionality module, social referencing module and ToM module.
Discuss social referencing
Social referencing is a branch of ToM. It is when someone has an emotional response to something because of how another person reacted to it. This is present in chimps and young children like the visual cliff. This issue with testing it on chimps is that it’s in an artificial environment so these behaviours may not be present in the wild.
What’s the main distinction between comparative and evolutionary psychology?
Comparative explores whether an animal can do a behaviour but evolutionary explores whether an animal does this behaviour.
Discuss deficits in ToM
People who have deficits in ToM have social problems. 2 main groups are associated with a lack of ToM; autistic and schizophrenic people. Schizophrenics also have inappropriate behaviour and feelings of dissociation from others.
Autistic people have difficulties with eye contact and can learn to pass the task but not further than 2nd level intentionality. Baron Cohen argues that autism is extreme maleness due to their attention to details rather than wholes; it’s more common in males.
Why have we evolved to have ToM?
The main argument is that it helps social bonding which is a crucial selection pressure. Living cohesively is advantageous because there is more protection, food and mates. In terms of humans, social groups are much more complex, so there is a greater need for social skills resulting in more complex processes evolving such as ToM. Humans and apes live in a fission-fusion society meaning we live in large groups and smaller groups at the same time. This is extremely cognitively demanding so we have needed to evolve a mechanism to understand levels of different people’s intentionality - ToM. It also allows us to keep up with constant changes in social bonds. ToM is universal among all cultures.
Who first coined the term ToM?
Premack. They showed chimps a human trying to solve a problem; they were trying to get a banana but it was behind a locked door. The chimps were language trained and they used their ToM to understand the person wanted the banana, resulting in the chimps reaching for a key to help solve the problem. However, this isn’t valid as the chimp may have just learnt to associate a lock with a key.
What are the issues with the definition of ToM?
It can be considered as an outdated concept, it might not be an all or nothing process and many brain areas are involved so it isn’t actually modular.
What is the function of emotion?
Emotion as a feeling state helps us with our behaviour and helps us make decisions.
Emotion as a behavioural state helps us signal emotions and interact with other people.
Emotional state can be mechanistic and unconscious like in the gambling task, we are drawn to a pile even if we don’t understand the rules as to why that pile is better.
Emotion as behaviour helps us to understand how other people feel, for example, Ekman’s 6 core emotions. Also, it is unique to the individual, the muscles used to produce the core emotions are universal but we have non-basic muscles that are unique to the individual and tend to be asymmetrical.
Discuss Andrew’s study
Andrews argued that emotions evolved originally because of intrapersonal reasons but has since developed to be socially adaptive. Emotions benefit one’s fitness because they are involved with dominance, greetings and reproductive rituals.
Discuss Cornew’s study
They provide evidence that social referencing is an essential component of ToM. They tested social referencing on children who were at high risk of developing ASD and found that they were unable to use the adult’s emotional signals to create a belief about a certain object.
Discuss Mink’s study
Mink found that children with a shy temperament have better abilities of ToM. These abilities were more sophisticated than children that weren’t shy and they were also better at reasoning. This shows that interpersonal differences are strategic specialisation; shy individuals are better at understanding others, aiding social bonds and bold individuals are more likely to find a mate via their confidence. Additionally, it shows how ToM may have evolved; it may have evolved as a mechanism for shy subordinates to create social bonds/act more cooperatively instead of acting confident or aggressively.
Discuss He’s study
This shows how emotions go further than social referencing. He found that people synchronise their emotional states with others during social interaction. This is a more long term concept than social referencing and it has clear evolutionary advantages. This emotion entertainment would improve cooperation and social bonds providing clear fitness benefits. When negative emotions occur, the partner would feel empathetic, supporting the idea of social bonds further. This also shows the evolutionary benefit of ToM as recognising someone else feeling these emotions and thus mirroring them to improve cooperation is extremely useful. This is extremely similar to the biological phenomenon of facial feedback; feeling an emotion due to the biological signals sent from the expression - smiling makes you happier. To relate to He’s study, mirroring expressions of others can improve your emotion perception. This is supported by Kraut who found that people with botox found it harder to perceive emotions as facial feedback couldn’t occur. Perceiving the emotions of others has evolutionary advantages as it allows you to understand how they feel, allowing you to react appropriately, thus explaining why you may synchronise your emotional states with the person you’re interacting with (to be able to perceive their emotion).
