Folk psychology

In this WiPhi video we’re going to explore the idea of folk psychology. Brian’s been nervously anticipating an email conveying an important decision. It just popped up in his inbox. Heart racing, fingers trembling, he clicks on the message and a few seconds later, his shoulders relax, he breaks out in a smile, and lets out a squeal of delight. Quick: did the email contain good news or bad news? Even though you don’t have any idea what the news is about, you know the answer is: good news. Brian’s behavior says it all: that’s just how someone acts when they get good news. Humans have a sophisticated ability to explain each others’ behavior in terms of mental states: beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, and so on. This is known as folk psychology. Most people are adept folk psychologists. Philosophers often describe folk psychology as a theory. This theory includes generalizations like, “When people feel happy, they smile,” “When people think there’s danger in the environment, they feel fear,” “When people want something, they figure out how they might get it.” To say these generalizations comprise a “theory” might seem strange. Aren’t they just facts? The question is based on a misunderstanding. A “theory” is nothing more than an explanation. A “fact” is just something that’s true. The best theories give true explanations — that is, they state the facts. Physicists assume that the facts about spacetime are captured by Einstein’s theory of general relativity The goal of any theory, in the end, is to point us to the facts. Other people’s minds aren’t open to us in the way our own minds are. We can’t “see” the causes of their behavior. Why did she just crinkle her nose? Why did they rush to the window? Why did he laugh? Folk psychology enables us to answer such questions easily, provided we have the right contextual information. Theories also help us make predictions. The theory of general relativity, for example, accurately predicted the existence of black holes. Likewise, folk psychology enables you to predict what people will do. Now that you know why she crinkled her nose, you can predict what she’ll do if you add even more pepper to the soup. Now that you know why he laughed, you can predict that he’ll like Buster Keaton movies. And so on. Some theorists take the idea that folk psychology is a theory quite literally, in effect treating it as the outcome of a long scientific investigation we undertake during childhood. Alison Gopnik, an early advocate of this approach, called it the “scientist as big child” view. As we grow, we observe others’ behavior, test explanations for it, and build up our folk psychological theory using the same techniques and mental machinery adults employ to develop scientific theories. Another approach says that our brains have built-in modules dedicated to folk psychology. According to this idea, folk psychology is encoded in more-or-less innate structures of our brains. As long as you’ve got the “theory of mind” module, you’re equipped with the basic tenets of folk psychology. We may not be able to access the contents of folk psychology directly, just like we can’t use introspection to decipher what goes on in our brains that turns retinal stimulation into full-fledged visual imagery. But we can reflect on our explanations of each others’ behavior, and figure out what our folk psychology says that way. Other theorists resist describing folk psychology as a theory at all. A prominent alternative says our understanding of people’s behavior rests on our ability to simulate experiences we aren’t actually having, and to imagine scenarios that aren’t actually occurring. When you see Brian’s reaction to the email, you consider what would have caused you to react that way in those circumstances. You reason like this: if I were in Brian’s shoes, I’d have that reaction to an email containing good news — so, it must have been good news! Or, instead of relying primarily on our ability to imagine ourselves in others’ shoes, folk psychology may be the product of a broader set of abilities: those we draw on when telling stories. Storytelling is an intrinsically social practice. On this view, folk psychology is passed down to us by our caregivers and others in ways similar to how other cultural narratives are. Each approach may contain a part of the truth. Our general capacity for theoretical explanation clearly helps shape our understanding of how people behave. It’s also plausible that we have some automatic, built-in understanding of human psychology. We often speculate about other people’s mental states through simulation and imagination. And the connection between folk psychology and narrative practices is clear. Folk psychology enables us to understand how other people work. But we are still a long way from fully understanding how it works! What do you think?