Belief–desire reasoning in the explanation of behavior: Do actions speak louder than words?
Abstract
The mechanisms underwriting our commonsense psychology, or 'theory of mind', have been extensively investigated via reasoning tasks that require participants to predict the action of agents based on information about beliefs and desires. However, relatively few studies have investigated the processes contributing to a central component of 'theory of mind' - our ability to explain the action of agents in terms of underlying beliefs and desires. In two studies, we demonstrate a novel phenomenon in adult belief-desire reasoning, capturing the folk notion that 'actions speak louder than words'. When story characters were described as searching in the wrong place for a target object, adult subjects often endorsed mental state explanations referencing a distracter object, but only when that object was approached. We discuss how this phenomenon, alongside other reasoning "errors" (e.g., hindsight bias; the curse of knowledge) can be used to illuminate the architecture of domain specific belief-desire reasoning processes.
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Evidence for continued influence on adults of developmentally earlier modes of thought is available from studies of reasoning errors.
“Evidence for the continued influence on adults of developmentally earlier modes of thought is available from studies of reasoning 'errors' (e.g., hindsight bias, 'the curse of knowledge,' 'actions speak louder than words'; Birch & Bloom, 2007; Blank, Nestler, von Collani, & Fischer, 2008; Wertz & German, 2007)”
From A developmental, mentalization-based approach to the understanding and treatment of borderline personality disorder (2009) · cites this paper as Wertz & German, 2007
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- Authors
- Wertz, A. E., & German, T. C.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- German, Tamsin C.
- Venue
- Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2007-10
- Volume
- 105
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 184-194
- ISSN
- 0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1983772872
- Cited by
- 24
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 1.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge
- Keywords
- belief-desire reasoning, theory of mind, folk psychology, explanation of action, reasoning errors, hindsight bias, curse of knowledge
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Concept Formation, Culture, Female, Humans, Male, Problem Solving, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Vocabulary
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