Behavioral Circumscription and the Folk Psychology of Belief: A Study in Ethno-Mentalizing
Publication date
2017-09-01
Authors
Rose, David
Machery, Edouard
Stich, Stephen
Alai, Mario
Angelucci, Adriano
Berniūnas, Renatas
Buchtel, Emma E.
Chatterjee, Amita
Cheon, Hyundeuk
Cho, In Rae
Editors
Advisors
Supervisors
Document Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
License
taverne
Abstract
Is behavioral integration (i.e., which occurs when a subject's assertion that p matches her nonverbal behavior) a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology.
Keywords
behavioral circumscription, belief, cross-cultural, delusions, folk psychology, Taverne, Philosophy
Citation
Rose, D, Machery, E, Stich, S, Alai, M, Angelucci, A, Berniūnas, R, Buchtel, E E, Chatterjee, A, Cheon, H, Cho, I R, Cohnitz, D, Cova, F, Dranseika, V, Lagos, Á E, Ghadakpour, L, Grinberg, M, Hannikainen, I, Hashimoto, T, Horowitz, A, Hristova, E, Jraissati, Y, Kadreva, V, Karasawa, K, Kim, H, Kim, Y, Lee, M, Mauro, C, Mizumoto, M, Moruzzi, S, Olivola, C Y, Ornelas, J, Osimani, B, Romero, C, Rosas, A, Sangoi, M, Sereni, A, Songhorian, S, Sousa, P, Struchiner, N, Tripodi, V, Usui, N, del Mercado, A V, Volpe, G, Vosgerichian, H A, Zhang, X & Zhu, J 2017, 'Behavioral Circumscription and the Folk Psychology of Belief : A Study in Ethno-Mentalizing', Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 193-203. https://doi.org/10.1002/tht3.248