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Behavioral Sciences
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Understanding Other Intentions: Merging Evidence on Theory of Mind across...
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Understanding Other Intentions: Merging Evidence on Theory of Mind across Various Research Areas

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Cognition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2025) | Viewed by 2113

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ester Navarro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, St. John’s University, Queens, NY 11439, USA
Interests: social cognition; perspective-taking; empathy; intentions; emotions

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Theory of mind (TOM) is a critical human skill. Without it, humans would not be able to communicate, form relationships or understand and predict others’ intentions. Much research in the area has focused on examining TOM development in young children and TOM impairments in clinical populations. However, renewed interest in the field has sparked a wave of research that examines TOM and related constructs (e.g., social cognition, mentalizing, social competence, common ground, perspective-taking) in a number of areas, including (a) changes in TOM in later adulthood, (b) individual differences in adult TOM, (c) the role of culture and language in TOM performance, (d) issues relating to TOM measurement validity and reliability and (e) the real-world effects of individual differences in TOM.

However, this increasing amount of research is rarely shared intra- and trans-disciplinarily, leading to disjointed findings in the field and hindering progress on TOM. Accordingly, this Special Issue aims to provide an outlet for researchers studying TOM across different psychological and related areas to share their work, and calls for papers focused on describing innovative findings across populations and/or methodological approaches, identifying issues in the state of the field and presenting research that cuts across niche areas to inform theory more broadly.

Dr. Ester Navarro
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • theory of mind
  • social cognition
  • empathy
  • social competence
  • perspective-taking
  • social interaction
  • cooperation
  • communication
  • embodied cognition
  • common ground
  • mentalizing

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 4019 KiB  
Article
Effects of Joint Action Observation on Children’s Imitation
by Nejra Rizvanović, Ildikó Király and Natalie Sebanz
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(2), 208; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15020208 - 13 Feb 2025
Viewed by 765
Abstract
Grasping others’ intentions from their actions is essential for learning, as it enhances the ability to identify collaborative acts and anticipate others’ actions, facilitating effective coordination toward shared goals. From a young age, children seem to recognize when others are working together based [...] Read more.
Grasping others’ intentions from their actions is essential for learning, as it enhances the ability to identify collaborative acts and anticipate others’ actions, facilitating effective coordination toward shared goals. From a young age, children seem to recognize when others are working together based on their interactions and use this understanding to inform their own learning. Although much of early learning occurs in joint contexts, little attention has been devoted to understanding how children learn by participating in joint actions and by observing others acting together. Using a puzzle box paradigm, we tested 3–6-year-old children’s imitation of an inefficient performance following individual and joint demonstrations in which the inefficient performance did or did not involve bimanual or joint coordination. This allowed us to test whether the tendency to overimitate extends to joint actions and how action coordination modulates imitative behavior. We found that overimitation extends to joint actions, as indicated by similar rates of inefficient copying following individual and joint action demonstrations. Furthermore, our results suggest that action coordination did not play a significant role in modulating children’s tendency to overimitate. Taken together, the results of the study advance our understanding of how learning occurs in social interactions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Other Intentions: Merging Evidence on Theory of Mind across Various Research Areas)
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Review

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15 pages, 846 KiB  
Review
Perspective-Taking and Reactions Toward Poor Performers in Groups: A Scoping Review and Discussion
by Emma Halfmann and J. Lukas Thürmer
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(5), 612; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15050612 - 1 May 2025
Viewed by 390
Abstract
Perspective-taking, the ability to adopt another person’s viewpoint, has been found to enhance group performance by fostering cooperation and coordination. However, if members threaten the attainment of group goals (i.e., poor performers), the intensity of perspective-taking is not sufficient to explain group [...] Read more.
Perspective-taking, the ability to adopt another person’s viewpoint, has been found to enhance group performance by fostering cooperation and coordination. However, if members threaten the attainment of group goals (i.e., poor performers), the intensity of perspective-taking is not sufficient to explain group members’ reactions to the poor performer (e.g., willingness to punish), since the findings are not unequivocally positive. It is key to consider the inferences resulting from perspective-taking efforts (attributions). These inferences, as attributions of the cause of the poor performance and the pro-group intent, are key determinants of group responses to poor performers. The goal of this scoping review is to examine the role of perspective-taking and attributions of the cause of poor performance in reactions toward poor performers in groups. Following the PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews, we performed a literature search in three databases (APA PsycInfo, PubPsych, and Web of Science) that yielded ten articles that matched our eligibility criteria. A narrative synthesis was employed to summarize the main findings across the included literature. This review highlights the need for integrating views on perspective-taking and attribution processes in group contexts to better understand how groups can effectively navigate challenges posed by diverging performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Other Intentions: Merging Evidence on Theory of Mind across Various Research Areas)
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