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Ascribing minds.

Cristiano Castelfranchi1

  • 1GOAL lab ISTC-CNR Roma, Rome, Italy. cristiano.castelfranchi@istc.cnr.it

Cognitive Processing
|October 13, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

We automatically attribute mental states to others based on social cues like roles and scripts. This rapid mind-reading forms the foundation of implicit communication.

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Area of Science:

  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Communication Studies

Background:

  • Social interaction necessitates understanding others' mental states.
  • Assumptions about others' beliefs and goals are rapidly made.
  • This process often occurs unconsciously or implicitly.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explain the mechanism of attributing mental representations to social actors.
  • To identify the basis of rapid, automatic mind-ascription.
  • To establish the link between mind-ascription and implicit communication.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of social cognition processes.
  • Examination of heuristic-based attributions.
  • Exploration of implicit mental attitude ascription.

Main Results:

  • Mental representations are ascribed to social actors quickly and automatically.
  • This ascription relies on social scripts, roles, categories, and heuristics.
  • Implicit mental attitudes, even when unactivated, are assumed to exist.

Conclusions:

  • The mechanism of mind ascription based on behavior and social cues is fundamental.
  • This process underlies a key form of communication: Behavioral Implicit Communication.