Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages 551-556Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.12.019
Keywords
Theory of mind; Perspective taking; Attention; Social cognition
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
People commonly interpret others' behavior in terms of the actors' underlying beliefs, knowledge, or other mental states, thereby using their theory of mind. Two experiments suggest that using one's theory of mind is a relatively effortful process. In both experiments, people reflexively used their own knowledge and beliefs to follow a speaker's instruction, but only effortfully used their theory of mind to take into account a speaker's intention to interpret those instructions. In Experiment I, people with lower working memory capacity were less effective than people with larger working memory capacity in applying their theory of mind to interpret behavior. In Experiment 2, an attention-demanding secondary task reduced people's ability to apply their theory of mind. People appear to be reflexively mindblind, interpreting behavior in terms of the actor's mental states only to the extent that they have the cognitive resources to do so. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available