Folk personality psychology: mindreading and mindshaping in trait attribution.
Character-trait attribution is an important component of everyday social cognition that has until recently received insufficient attention in traditional accounts of folk psychology. In this paper, I consider how the case of character-trait attribution fits into the debate between mindreading-based...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 198; no. 9; pp. 8213 - 8233 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Sep2021
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=153077679&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 153077679 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2021 vid: 198 iid: 9 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 153077679 10.1007/s11229-020-02566-7 ppf: 8213 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 343KB tig: atl: Folk personality psychology: mindreading and mindshaping in trait attribution. aug: au: Westra, Evan affil: Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, 170 St George Street, Toronto, Canada su: Ethnopsychology Attribution (Social psychology) Social perception Theory of mind sug: subj: Ethnopsychology Attribution (Social psychology) Social perception Theory of mind keyword: Character traits Folk psychology Mindreading Mindshaping Pluralism Social cognition ab: Character-trait attribution is an important component of everyday social cognition that has until recently received insufficient attention in traditional accounts of folk psychology. In this paper, I consider how the case of character-trait attribution fits into the debate between mindreading-based and broadly 'pluralistic' approaches to folk psychology. Contrary to the arguments of some pluralists, I argue that the evidence on trait understanding does not show that it is a distinct, non-mentalistic mode of folk-psychological reasoning, but rather suggests that traits are ordinarily understood as mentalistic dispositions. I also examine several ways in which trait attribution might also serve regulative, 'mindshaping' functions by promoting predictable norm-governed behavior, and argue that mindreading plays several important roles in these cases as well. I conclude that an appreciation of the relationship between trait attribution and mindreading is crucial to understanding the role it plays in our folk psychology. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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