Attributing Mind to Groups and Their Members on Two Dimensions.
Tetsushi Tanibe1,2, Takaaki Hashimoto1, Tobu Tomabechi1
1Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Frontiers in Psychology
|May 10, 2019
Summary
People attribute mental states to groups, particularly highly entitative ones. Group mind attribution reduces perceived agency in individuals, but not their experience, with a new factor of other-recognition emerging.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Psychology
- Group Cognition
Background:
- Psychological research indicates people attribute mental states to groups, especially highly entitative ones.
- Attributing a mind to a group decreases mind attribution to individual members.
- Perception of others' minds involves two dimensions: agency and experience.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate if the two-dimensional structure of mind perception (agency, experience) applies to groups.
- Examine how group entitativity relates to these two dimensions of group mind attribution.
- Explore the impact of group entitativity on mind attribution to individual group members.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a vignette experiment to study mind attribution to groups and individuals.
- Manipulated group entitativity in experimental vignettes.
- Measured attributions of agency, experience, and other-recognition to groups and individuals.
Main Results:
- Highly entitative groups received greater attributions of both agency and experience.
- Group entitativity reduced agency attribution to individual members but not experience attribution.
- A novel factor, other-recognition, positively correlated with group entitativity and affected individual mind attribution.
Conclusions:
- Group entitativity influences mind attribution to groups and their members distinctly across agency and experience dimensions.
- The findings extend the two-dimensional model of mind perception to group contexts.
- Other-recognition emerges as a significant factor in understanding mind attribution to individuals within groups.
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