Reviews for Introduction to theory of mind

The average rating for Introduction to theory of mind based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-07-19 00:00:00 Declan Mc Gahey This was a super fun read--lots of theorists disagreeing with one another and proposing theory after theory. This book was full of well-written papers and was very well-organized, and unlike many similar books, the authors had clearly read one another's work and constantly referred to one another throughout their papers. They were able to state precisely where their views differed from one another--this really won me over since so often I read books like this in which the writers seem to have never heard of one another and all use different words to refer to the same concepts. The only thing I didn't like about this book is not a fault of this book but rather the industry. Humans are fascinated by why we do the things we do, and why others do they things they do, but the focus is almost always on control and theory of mind is no different. Many of the papers I read in this book asserted that the better one is at theory of mind, the better one is at relationships--their reasoning being that the better we can predict other people's behavior, the better we can "read" them, the better we can please them. This is laughable. Reading other people's minds and predicting their behavior is about control. Even if I am using my "mind reading" skills to MAKE people happy (as opposed to sad, angry, suicidal, etc), my goal is to control the other person, to manipulate them. Those who are best at theory of mind are the best manipulators. Theory of Mind is a war skill. Not a peace skill. The path to high quality relationships is NOT actually getting better at reading other people's minds, it's communication, self-awareness, honesty, and integrity. One author in this book admits this when he acknowledges that honest communication can be beneficial at times, but the bottom line, he says, is that manipulation pays the most--and he acts as if the entire scientific community has accepted that. He has obviously never read Rand or Branden about how much damage coercive relationships cause all parties involve (even the "winner"), but at least he does't try to convince me that I will have better relationships if I hone my manipulation skills. It should also be noted that, as usual, we theorize about all children and the human race after studying children of Westerners--there were quite a few places in this book where I noted that a claim being made could not have been made about the children of hunter gatherers. Alternative labels for discussions about theory of mind include: folk psychology, consciousness of the feeling of their fellows, Imputation to others first-hand experience, Naive psychology, Second-order intentionality, intersubjectivity, theory of mind, metarepresentation, belief-desire reasoning, natural psychology, social referencing, mind reading, mental simulation, mentalising, perception of intentionality, mental attribution, mentalistic theory of behavior, representational theory of mind. My Conclusions, Questions, and Notes-to-Self: -Children don't tend to focus on developing their skills of manipulating others until it is necessary--usually preschool or when siblings are spaced closer than 5 years. -One of the greatest arguments made in favor of preschool is that a "rich social environment" supports the development of theory of mind. Which is to say: if you want your child to be great at coercing and manipulating others, make sure you send him or her to preschool and daycare as young as possible. Perhaps it is: kids who go to preschool develop social metaphysics and therefore rightly conclude that manipulation is the number one thing they must study. -For those of us who are trying to answer the question, what causes freemen to become statists--one answer is child spacing of closer than 5 years and another is preschool and daycare. (Note that a properly run Montessori preschool does not promote social metaphysics, nor do I believe would it encourage excessive focus on theory of mind.) -I wonder how much the language we speak organizes our thoughts and encourages some kinds of developments, behaviors and ways of thinking, over others i.e. English, at least the way we speak it today, is a war-language. -It seems to me that sociodramatic play IS a game with rules, just social rules rather than physical reality based rules. -Children under 4 are not "using their imagination" so much as they are "acting as if" in order to practice certain behaviors. Children play pretend games in order to study reality, in order to "imitate the behavior of others that is prominent in the real world." It was also suggested that they may be exploring a concept. But always, the "more popular children tend to take higher status positions in pretend play than do less popular children." -One paper in this book makes me believe that those teachers in the 1800' who said picture books destroy memory were right--or rather, children remember incidents in the pictures and don't remember the narrative. -By 2 months of age infants already react to the attitudes and emotions of those around them. Some theorists do believe that infants have a theory of mind, not as developed as older children, but that it's there. Again, fascinating to me that the important thing is when children are able to consciously manipulate others, not when they are able to connect with them and communicate in ways that get their needs met. ARGH. -No one in this book seems to doubt that even the youngest infants are conscious. Moreover, one states, that the imitation of infants is not reflexive. -One theorist argues that babies "abstract the invariance of facial expression" at four months. -Children who engage in discourse with their mothers about their disputes are much better at understanding their own inner states. No one knew that until the scientists studied it.... -Between 3 and 4 children make a lot more jokes--about their own inadequacy. I wonder how they learned that that was funny. :( -Children under the age of 4 (who don't have an older sibling) basically can't lie. -Children are not egocentric. They are actually quite skilled social beings and quite skilled observers of the behavior of other people. -One paper argued that most three year olds DO understand that monsters are not real--but are still very afraid of them. -Children do seem to understand when adults are pretending if the adult wants them too (i.e. children can be easily duped by parents who want them to believe in Santa Claus, but won't be duped by the parent pretending to use a banana as a phone who doesn't want the child to be duped.) In emotional situations, however, children have a very hard time differentiating reality from pretense (a good argument against Disney movies.)

Review # 2 was written on 2016-10-08 00:00:00 ROBERT RANDALL This book seemed the most difficult to understand and almost contradictory, or maybe I'm misinterpreting it. It still had a lot of great lessons, quotes, and anecdotes that anyone can benefit from.