Showing our seams: A reply to Eric Funkhouser

Levy, Neil

doi:10.1080/09515089.2018.1473564

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Just as important, however, is a more theoretical question that I have largely ignored throughout this article: Even granting that social incentives influence the way in which we seek out and process information, why treat the cognitive attitudes that result from such incentives as beliefs (see Levy, 2018)? 9 Many philosophers and psychologists have sought to draw a distinction between different kinds of cognitive attitudes that are often subsumed under the general term ‘belief’ 10 . Although none of the distinctions such theorists have drawn that I am aware of align straightforwardly with the difference between socially adaptive beliefs and ordinary world‐modelling beliefs that I have outlined here, one might nevertheless worry that the functional properties of the former are sufficiently different from the latter to warrant status as a different kind of cognitive attitude.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socially adaptive belief

Williams

2020

Mind & Language

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I clarify and defend the hypothesis that human belief formation is sensitive to social rewards and punishments, such that beliefs are sometimes formed based on unconscious expectations of their likely effects on other agents – agents who frequently reward us when we hold ungrounded beliefs and punish us when we hold reasonable ones. After clarifying this phenomenon and distinguishing it from other sources of bias in the psychological literature, I argue that the hypothesis is plausible on theoretical grounds and I show how it illuminates and unifies a range of psychological phenomena, including confabulation and rationalisation, positive illusions, and identity‐protective cognition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socially adaptive belief

Williams

2020

Mind & Language

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“…For example, because their function is not to track how things are, one would not expect them to be highly responsive to evidence concerning how things are (Funkhouser, 2017; Williams, 2021). Similarly, because socially adaptive beliefs are not truth‐tracking, one would expect individuals to be reluctant to draw inferences from or to act on such beliefs when such inferences and actions are not themselves socially rewarded (Levy, 2018; Mercier, 2020). That is, one would expect such beliefs to be somewhat compartmentalised in the believer's mental life, or else individuals would risk letting inaccurate information compromise their general understanding of reality.…”

Section: The Psychology Of Strategic Absurditiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signalling, commitment, and strategic absurdities

Williams

2021

Mind & Language

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Why do well-functioning psychological systems sometimes give rise to absurd beliefs that are radically misaligned with reality? Drawing on signalling theory, I develop and explore the hypothesis that groups often embrace beliefs that are viewed as absurd by outsiders as a means of signalling ingroup commitment. I clarify the game-theoretic and psychological underpinnings of this hypothesis, I contrast it with similar proposals about the signalling functions of beliefs, and I motivate several psychological and sociological predictions that could be used to distinguish it from alternative explanations of irrational group beliefs.absurd belief, irrationality, motivated reasoning, self-deception, signalling, socially adaptive belief "Apparently irrational cultural beliefs are quite remarkable: they do not appear irrational by slightly departing from common sense, or timidly going beyond what the evidence allows. They appear, rather, like down-right provocations against common sense rationality" (Sperber, 1985, p. 85).

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“…For example, people tend to have an overly positive self-conception (Taylor & Brown, 1988 ). Such self-enhancement has typically been construed as for the sake of self-esteem, which could be interpreted as a form of self-signaling (Levy, 2018 ). But it could also be a form of social signaling so that others are more likely to hire, date, or defer to us.…”

Section: Goal Pursuit With Mentalistic Mindreadingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1 Sterelny ( 2015 ), Funkhouser ( 2017 ), Levy ( 2018 ), Williams ( 2021 ), and Petersen et al ( 2021 ). …”

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confidence: 99%

Evolutionary psychology, learning, and belief signaling: design for natural and artificial systems

Funkhouser

2021

Synthese

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Recent work in the cognitive sciences has argued that beliefs sometimes acquire signaling functions in virtue of their ability to reveal information that manipulates “mindreaders.” This paper sketches some of the evolutionary and design considerations that could take agents from solipsistic goal pursuit to beliefs that serve as social signals. Such beliefs will be governed by norms besides just the traditional norms of epistemology (e.g., truth and rational support). As agents become better at detecting the agency of others, either through evolutionary history or individual learning, the candidate pool for signaling expands. This logic holds for natural and artificial agents that find themselves in recurring social situations that reward the sharing of one’s thoughts.

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Showing our seams: A reply to Eric Funkhouser

Cited by 4 publications

References 39 publications

Socially adaptive belief

Socially adaptive belief

Signalling, commitment, and strategic absurdities

Evolutionary psychology, learning, and belief signaling: design for natural and artificial systems

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