Inside the Mind Reader's Tool Kit: Projection and Stereotyping in Mental State Inference.

Abstract

Mental state inferences-judgments about what others think, want, and feel-are central to social life. Models of "mind reading" have considered main effects, including social projection and stereotyping, but have not specified the conditions that govern when these tools will be used. This article develops such a model, claiming that when perceivers assume an initial general sense of similarity to a target, they engage in greater projection and less stereotyping. Three studies featuring manipulations of similarity support this claim. Moreover, reaction time results shed light on the mechanisms underlying these effects. The proposed model gives a new view of the mind reader's tool kit and, more generally, raises questions about moderators of stereotyping and projection in social judgment.We are all mind readers. Not the magical sort, but rather the most ordinary, casually and quickly intuiting what the people around us think, want, and feel. A friend delivers an unwanted birthday present to us, and yet we know she meant well. A new colleague gushes with ideas in front of the boss, and we see not just enthusiasm but his self-promoting motives. A potential romantic partner resists our initial overtures, but somehow we sense (whether rightly or not) that a spark of interest may yet be kindled. At least since Heider's (1958) pioneering work on folk concepts such as "want" and "try," social psychologists have known that inferring mental states-reading minds-comes naturally, if somewhat imperfectly, to most adults and drives much of impression formation (e.g

Interpersonal similarity as a social distance dimension: Implications for perception of others’ actions

“…These theories suggest that people use their own mental states to infer others' beliefs and behaviors (e.g., Hoch, 1987;Krueger, 1998;Marks & Miller, 1987;Nickerson, 1999;Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). Recently, several researchers have argued that this is true mostly for similar and close others (e.g., Ames 2004aAmes , 2004bMitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005;Schul & Vinokur, 2000). For example, recent work by Ames has shown that higher levels of perceived similarity to a target were associated with greater projection and less stereotyping (Ames, 2004a;2004b).…”

“…Recently, several researchers have argued that this is true mostly for similar and close others (e.g., Ames 2004aAmes , 2004bMitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005;Schul & Vinokur, 2000). For example, recent work by Ames has shown that higher levels of perceived similarity to a target were associated with greater projection and less stereotyping (Ames, 2004a;2004b). In addition, it has been shown that interpersonal closeness increases the overlap between mental representations of the self and mental representation of socially close others (e.g., Aron et al, 1991;Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, &Neuberg, 1997;Mashek, Aron, & Boncimino, 2003;Smith, Coats, & Walling, 1999).…”

The order effect in self–other predictions: considering target as a moderator

“…We expected that people rely more on the self when predicting a similar other than when predicting a dissimilar other (Ames, 2004). When predicting dissimilar others, no order effect should emerge.…”

“…People should make use of other sources of information instead, such as stereotype knowledge (cf. Ames, 2004). Because self-predictions and predictions of the older person should involve, at least in part, independent processes and strategies for prediction, we expected no order effects on self-other correspondence for the prediction of older persons.…”

“…When people predict the feelings of a dissimilar other, predictions are mainly based on stereotype information and the self is less accessible (Ames, 2004). Because other-predictions are therefore-at least partly-independent of self-predictions, whether these self-predictions precede or follow other-predictions should have little or no influence on the predictions for a dissimilar other.…”