The impact of culture on mindreading

Abstract

The role of culture in shaping folk psychology and mindreading has been neglected in the philosophical literature. This paper shows that there are significant cultural differences in how psychological states are understood and used by (1) drawing on Spaulding's recent distinction between the 'goals' and 'methods' of mindreading (2018) to argue that the relations between these methods vary across cultures; and (2) arguing that differences in folk psychology cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the cognitive architecture that facilitates our understanding of psychological states. The paper concludes that any good account of social cognition must have the conceptual resources to explain how culture affects our understanding of psychological states, and that this explanandum should not be an afterthought but instead a guiding feature for those accounts.

Development and use of theory of mind in social and cultural context

“…Crowded households and children's supervision by multiple adults are common features of collectivist societies. Although adults in these societies are expected to teach children interdependent actions by promoting shared viewpoints and understating diverse ideas (Lavelle, 2019), data from Turkey have not confirmed this expectation. Because of generational differences in endorsement of individualist and collectivist values in Turkey, with older generations prioritizing more collectivist ideals such as relatedness and respect for authority more than younger generations (Sunar, 2002), children in these crowded households were probably exposed to rich discussions that highlighted diverse opinions.…”

“…Researchers have argued that endorsement of individualist cultural values in industrialized and urbanized Western societies and parents' more frequent reference to others' minds may expose children to unique viewpoints early in development and hence, promote children's ToM (Lillard, 1998). In contrast, collectivist attitudes that place importance on cohesion and communal thinking in non‐Western countries with lower levels of industrialization, education, and urbanization might de‐emphasize individual perspectives, which can result in children lagging behind their Western peers in their understanding of mental states (Lavelle, 2019).…”

“…Several studies have tested these ideas in relation to children's acquisition of false‐belief understanding and sequential development of ToM (Lavelle, 2019; Peterson & Slaughter, 2016; Slaughter & Perez‐Zapata, 2014), but these have dealt mainly with sociocultural variation in a dichotomous manner by comparing collectivist cultures with individualist ones. Yet considering the rapid pace of globalization and the spread of information between different regions of the world, the cultural realities of contemporary countries fit poorly into this dichotomous categorization of individualism and collectivism (Santos et al, 2017).…”

Constructing persons: On the personal–subpersonal distinction

“…Though I think in general we find predominantly commonality, see Section 6 for a potential example of this kind of variation. See (Lavelle 2021) for discussion.…”

Lenguaje y Resguardo Social

“…Existen, además, dos fuentes importantes de evidencia empírica a favor del constructivismo evolutivo. Por un lado, estudios recientes apuntan a una gran variedad cultural en el uso de la psicología popular (Lavelle 2019). Por ejemplo, mientras los niños australianos y estadounidenses entienden que dos personas pueden tener creencias diferentes antes de aprender que las personas pueden tener acceso diferente al conocimiento de un hecho, los niños chinos e iraníes exhiben el patrón contrario (Shahaeian y otros 2011).…”