Understanding Human Behavior: Intuitive Psychology & Folk Theory, Exercises of English

Download Understanding Human Behavior: Intuitive Psychology & Folk Theory and more Exercises English in PDF only on Docsity! Allgemeine Psychologie II Lecture I: Folk Psychology Frank Jäkel TU Darmstadt Oct/19/2017 Kontakt Frank Jäkel Gebäude S1|15 Raum 210 Email: jaekel@psychologie.tu-darmstadt.de Circular Impetus | me {iat however huey crear maton Tal i tcve ins steph Hae longo ongentf Me tiglal cu would be cwved Ce8U TD percent gaoe ther HueretTespomrs [McCloskey, 1983] Circular Impetus || lh off pe ae me te sas htt gs aE Eye ot na sale Soe pechglte Petcare sable ned he seuryy nite Wap eght percent of he ober Gied other uaseveafel sig [McCloskey, 1983] Intuitive Physics I Our intuitive theories of physics are often wrong (or at least pre-scientific) I Not surprising for quantum mechanics I But we also find Newtonian mechanics counter-intuitive despite (or because of?) everyday experience with moving objects I Intuitive physics is studied by psychologists I This helps in teaching physics I This helps understanding the history of physics Intuitive Psychology with Beliefs and Desires “Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in many—but not all—instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.” [Dennett, 1997, p. 61] Other People’s Beliefs 4-year olds can do this false-belief task. [Wimmer and Perner, 1983, Frith and Frith, 1999] Other People’s Desires I An experimenter clearly demonstrates to a child that she loves broccoli and hates crackers I This is contrary to the child’s own preferences I One bowl with broccoli and one bowl with crackers is placed before the child I The experimenter places her hand between the two bowls and asks the child “to give her one” without indicating which one I Most 14-month-old children hand the crackers I Most 18-month-old children hand the broccoli [Repacholi and Gopnik, 1997] Attribution I In social psychology the explanations we give for people’s behavior are called attributions I Attributions are based on intuitive psychology I Cognitive psychologists are interested in how we attribute beliefs and desires to other people; social psychologists are usually more interested in how we attribute personality traits, attitudes and moods to other people I We have a strong tendency to explain behavior by personal dispositions even when situational factors are more appropriate I This is called the fundamental attribution error in social psychology (examples follow) Attribution of Agency I Geometric stimulus situations can evoke vivid mental descriptions I E.g. one subject reports:“A man has planned to meet a girl and the girl comes along with another man. [...] She apparently does not want to be with the first man. [...] The girl gets worried and races from one corner to the other in the far part of the room. [...] The first man goes back and tries to open his door, but he is so blinded by that rage and frustration he cannot open it. [...]” [Heider and Simmel, 1944] Introspection And Privileged Access I We often do not fully understand the situational and environmental factors that lead to a person’s behavior and rely too much on intuitive psychology when trying to understand other people I But we surely understand our own behavior better than anyone else, don’t we? I We know why we did something because we can introspect on the reasons for our behavior, right? Why Did You Call Her? I On two scenic bridges male bypassers were contacted by an attractive female interviewer who asked them to fill out a questionnaire I One bridge was a fear-arousing suspension bridge (experimental group) I The other bridge was non-fear-arousing (control group) I After filling out the questionnaire Ss were given the interviewer’s phone number and invited to call, if he wanted to know more about the experiment I In the experimental group 9 out of 18 called I In the control group 2 out of 16 I Misattribution of physiological response? I Would you think you’d call someone because you met him/her on a suspension bridge? [Dutton and Aron, 1974] Why Did You Choose This Picture? I Ss had to choose the more attractive face and explain their reasons after the choice was made I In some trials the cards were switched without the Ss noticing I Ss confabulated reasons for choices they didn’t make I This phenomenon is called choice blindness [Johansson et al., 2005] So Why Did the Chicken Really Cross the Road? (The Far Side by Gary Larson) Shallow and Circular Explanations I Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it wanted to get to the other side. I Why did he eat? Because he was hungry. I Why did he not chat her up? Because he is shy. I These explanations match up with our self-perception as agents but what do they really explain? Methodological Behaviorism I “Mentalistic explanations allay curiosity and bring inquiry to a stop.” [Skinner, 1974, p. 15] I Food deprivation→ feeling of hunger→ eating I For prediction and control nothing is lost if we neglect the supposed non-physical link I Being shy = not-chatting-up person I How did his prior environmental history lead to the formation of this habit? I “The mentalistic problem can be avoided by going directly to the prior physical causes while bypassing intermediate feelings or states of mind.” [Skinner, 1974, p. 14] Summary I Our theory of mind can be probed by various tasks that require reasoning about mental states I Intuitive psychology may work quite well in many circumstances but careful experiments show that we underestimate the role of the environment I Introspective data has to be interpreted very carefully and can be misleading I Behaviorism sought to overcome intuitive but shallow explanations of behavior that are given in terms of mental states and personal dispositions I Behaviorism sought to free psychology from relying chiefly on subjective and often unreliable introspective data I Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior and how it is controlled by factors in the environment (this does not imply denying the existence of mental events) Bonus Slides: Braitenberg Vehicles y yy YY SK J ORS) FS) [Braitenberg, 1984] Fear and Aggression [Braitenberg, 1984] www.xkcd.com/954/ Recommended Reading I very highly recommend reading Vehicles [Braitenberg, 1984]. It’s short and fun. For historical reasons it is interesting to read the behaviorists’ manifesto [Watson, 1913]. Cognitive psychologists often have a simplistic view of what behaviorism is about and most textbooks only present a caricature. As a remedy I recommend reading About Behaviorism [Skinner, 1974]. For a philosophical account of folk psychology Dennett’s chapter on True Believers is a good starting point [Dennett, 1997]. There is a huge literature on theory of mind in cognitive science. Some of the studies are mentioned above. Unfortunately, I do not know a nice review paper or book on this topic. You will find a section on attribution in any social psychology textbook. I took several of the above examples from [Brehm et al., 2005]. One of the most influential papers on whether we can trust verbal reports is [Nisbett and Wilson, 1977]. I hasten to add that you should only read this work in conjunction with [Ericsson and Simon, 1980]. We will return to the topic of verbal reports in the lecture on problem solving. Anderson, J. A. (2000). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. W.H.Freeman, 5th edition. Braitenberg, V. (1984). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press. Brehm, S. S., Kassin, S., and Fein, S. (2005). Social Psychology. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 6th edition. Dennett, D. (1997). True believers: The intentional strategy and why it works. In Haugeland, J., editor, Mind Design II: Philosophy, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, chapter 3. Dutton, D. G. and Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4):510–517. Ericsson, K. A. and Simon, H. A. (1980). Verbal reports as data. Psychological Review, 87(3):215–251. Frith, C. D. and Frith, U. (1999). Interacting minds—a biological basis. Science, 286(5445):1692–1695. Gergely, G., Bekkering, H., and Király, I. (2002). Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature, 415(6873):755.