PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE General Article OTHER F O L K S ' T H E O R I E S O F MIND A N D B E H A V I O R By Angeline S. Lillard University of Virginia

Our everyday, basic understanding of peopte 's mental states and dictable, and lnteresung We spend a good deal of time con- behaviors has recently been a lively topic of debate m the social sidenng others' mental states and the reasons for their behav- sciences This article addresses whether some aspects of our Euro- iors, so much so that Humphrey (1984) deemed it appropriate pean-American theory of mind are universal, by examining ethno- to refer to our species as Homo psychologicus rather than graphic and experimental reports of cultural variation Implications Homo sapiens of that variation for nativist theories of development are discussed and research strategies to augment our understanding are proposed In examining our everyday, folk understanding of mind and behavior, we draw mainly on a database of information culled from European-Amencan experience (Europeans and non- In recent years, in fields ranging from philosophy to social European Americans probably also share much of that folk cognition to development, there has been a virtual groundswell knowledge ) As some social psychologists have argued (e g , of discussion examining what is often referred to as theory of Markus & Kitayama, 1991), extrapolaUons based on this one mind This term has a spectrum of referents, from a tendency cultural group might not hold up well m other cultures Indeed, to impute mental states (Premack & Woodruff, 1978) to a D'Andrade (1987) pointed out some differences between complex system of knowledge about mmds and behavior This Ifaluk and Amencan models of the mind, and I (Lillard, in complex IS theorylike in that it specifies causes, provides press) have reviewed differences across a wide range of cul- explanations, embraces specific ontological distinctions, and is tures But even within European-Amencan culture, theory-of- coherent (Wellman, 1990) mind content is not as consistent as the literature might lead The classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood can provide an one to expect What is held forth in academics as the theory of example of what a difference our knowledge about minds mind IS actually a specific European-Amencan formulation, makes in how we interpret and understand others If we distill one that resonates with scientifically minded academics We out mentalistic interpretation, this tale is rather dry A little girl rarely consider, for example, the prevalence, source, or mean- hears from a woodcutter that her grandmother is sick She ing of Amencans' folk behefs in supernatural forces affecting rulks to her grandmother's house, carrying a basket of treats minds and behavior, because academics tend not to hold such A wolf who IS m her grandmother's bed jumps out and runs views themselves and do not think them important after the girl Our failure to consider other ways of thinking about mmds Incorporating an interpretation guided by our theory of and explaining behavior not only affects our descnptions of mind makes the story a good deal more coherent and interest- theones of mind, but also has implications for our theones of ing Little Red Ridmg Hood learns from the woodcutter that development Explaining development is a major task of de- her grandmother is sick She wants to make her grandmother velopmental psychology, and theones postulating preadapted feel better (she is a nice, canng child), and she thinks that a mechanisms are very much in vogue These theones are chal- basket of treats will help, so she brings such a basket through lenged by the cross-cultural evidence because they have been the woods to her grandmother's house (behefs and desires lead constructed to explain evidence coming only from this limited :tions) When she arrives there, she sees the wolf m her iltural milieu The result is that enculturation might be mis- grandmother's bed, but she falsely believes that the wolf is her taken for biological maturation In this article, I bnefly present grandmother (appearances can be deceiving) When she real- what we know about the development of theory-of-mind izes It IS a wolf, she is frightened and runs away, because she knowledge m European-Amencan children, outline four nativ- knows wolves can hurt people The wolf, who indeed wants to ist developmental theones, and then consider the cross-cultural eat her, leaps out of the bed and runs after her, trying to catch evidence and its implications for these theones

Our tendency to interpret others in folk psychological or DEVELOPMENT theory-of-mind terms makes others more understandable, pre- Children's Knowledge About the Mind Address corrcspotidetice to Angelitie S Lillard. Department of Psychology. Giltner Hall Utiiversity of Virgitua, Charlonesville. VA 22903-2477. e-tnatl A good body of knowledge concerning what children at lillard@virgimae

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and these other mental process functions of nnawa thereby seem consistent with the functions of our own mind, although Ethnography the physical identities are different However, there are many important differences First, One aim in psychology is to specify what is natural and nnawa is not hnuted to humans and animals All growmg what IS enculturated, and how they intertwine, but little prog- things, includmg plants, have nnawa Second, nnawa i\ ress can be made to that end if only one cultural group is sponsible for much more than thought and feeling, including studied Although ethnography's methods are very different what Rosaldo translated as fertility, health, hfe energy, social from those of expenmental psychology, they give nse to cer- relations, vitality, and ammadon Thus, nnawa has a much tain strengths One of these is that evidence is denved from larger scope than nund has Further, nnawa behaves in ways immersion in people's actual hves rather than from laborato- that mmds do not It leaves one's body gradually over the life nes, another is that ethnographers attempt to understand entire course, so that old people have very little nnawa, at death, meamng systems (Bruner, 1990, Hammersly, 1990) Although nnawa is gone entirely Although we might have a similar ideally evidence would come from consistent results denved notion regarding the very old and mmds, we do not think of through both types of methods, at this point ethnography is minds as gradually receding through life, indeed, childhood is often all that is available Two ethnographic accounts relevant a time of building mmds And we do not doubt the elderly'; to theones of mind are examined here Rosaldo's (1980) report ability to feel, as would be implied by a loss of nnawa Also of the Illongot concept most closely translated as "mind" and in contrast to our notion of mmds, one's nnawa leaves when Evans-Pntchard's (1976) discussion of the Azande's use of one IS dreaming, and travels about If one's nnawa eats with a witchcraft to explain behavior dead person dunng a dream, one will begin to die, because one's nnawa will be more comfortable among the dead One's The Illongot nnawa can be stolen by magic ntes, and can be brought back The Illongot are a Philippines group that was studied by by the use of water in special ceremonies Rinawa has elements Rosaldo in the 1960s and 1970s At that ume, there were about of our concepts of mind, heart, soul, and life force, but it is not easily assimilated to those nor any other European-Amencan 3,500 Illongots, inhabiting an area of about 1,500 km^ and concepts Wierzbicka (1992) noted several other cultures that dispersed into 35 settlements The average household was do not have a concept analogous to "mind" and argued that it composed of about 7 people The Illongots were mainly nee IS a umque English-language formulation As I discuss later, farmers, one of their unusual charactenstics from a European- the uniqueness of the mind concept raises questions regarding Amencan perspective was their engagement m the practice of innate concepts head-hunting "Men went headhunting, Illongots said, because of their emotions Not gods, but 'heavy' feelings were what A further difference between the European-Amencan and made men want to kill, m taking heads they could aspire to Illongot views is that the Illongot are not particularly interested 'cast off an 'anger' that 'weighed down on' and oppressed in internal aspects of the person, instead, then- focus is on their saddened 'hearts' [nnawa]" (p 19) Rosaldo noted that social relations (Rosaldo, 1980) One sees similar claims m '[nnawa] for an outsider evokes the pnvacy of lntenor expe- many ethnographies (Lillard, in press), suggesting that Euro- nence and for [Illongots] does that and more" (p 36) The pean-Amencan attenuon to minds is in fact unusual, and call- issue to be addressed here is the extent to which the concept of into question Humphrey's claim that our species would nnawa is the same as our concept of mind more aptly be called Homo psychologicus One clear difference is identity Human nnawa is identified lth the heart It is located in the chest cavity, and it beats In The Azande contrast, our mind is identified with the brain However, iden- Even in cultures that do not attend to mmds as carefully as tity IS not as crucial to the mind concept as are mental pro- does our own, people behave According to the literature, we cesses Here, there are many similanUes The nnawa is the seat tend to see mmds and mental states at the root of most behav- of thought, action, awareness, concentrauon, and creaUvity— iors (D'Andrade, 1987, Lillard, in press), but m some cultures, many of the processes that European Amencans link to mmds some behaviors that we would attnbute to the person are in- Feeling is also hnked to nnawa European Amencans are am- stead attnbuted to other sources One such cultural group is the iguous with regard to feeling being part of the mind On the Azande (Evans-Pntchard, 1976) The Azande are from central one hand, feeling is commonly located m the heart, on the Africa, and in the 1920s, when Evans-Pntchard lived among other hand, the mind is thought to be necessary to feeling them, they were organized into tnbal kingdoms and subsisted (Johnson & Wellman, 1982), and havmg emouons is consid- by farming, hunting, and fishing They also raised chickens for ered among the most important functions of imnd (Rips & use in oracles When a question deemed worthy of such a Conrad, 1989) The theory-of-mmd field of study certamly consultation arose, a chicken was given some poison Some- includes emotion, and some cogmdve states, hke approval, times the chicken died, mdicatmg one response to the question, have an emotional component (D'Andrade, 1987) Emouon and other times the chicken hved, indicating another Hard

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consistent with Moms and Peng's (1994) findings, a difference To summanze, one can explain a behavior at many levels in cultural preferences was evident Five levels—trait, belief-desire, situaUon, other person, spir- it—either directly or indirectly imply an mtenUonal system gods or spints or selves that have intenuons, beliefs, and so on POSSIBLE WAYS OF EXPLAINING BEHAVIORS Two other levels are lntenUon blind biological and astrological Within any culture, there are, of course, many ways m explanauon ' Although a good deal of research has looked at which an event or behavior can be explained Consider the behavior attnbuUon, the focus has tended to be on trait versus event of a woman jigghng her leg One might explain it with SituaUon explanauons We do not know how frequently other reference to a trait She is a nervous person, so she jiggles her sorts of explanauons are used, either in European-Amencan leg Or one might use a behef-desire explanauon She wants to culture or across cultures A worthwhile research program lose weight, and she thinks jigghng her leg will help her to do would be to examine the frequency with which respondents in so A situation explanauon could be that she is about to give a vanous cultures invoke these different types of explanauons speech, and that situaUon is temporarily making her nervous for behaviors, and under what circumstances Further, one There is an "other side of the com" quality to situation ex- should examine the relauve weight given to each sort of cause, planations, in that they often imply internal person factors because any given behavior might be explained in muluple Someone else might not get nervous in that situation ways even by a single person For some behaviors, the fre- A fourth possible cause could be other people Her mother- quencies of vanous explanauons might be similar across cul- in-law makes her nervous This could be seen as a situation tures (getung a dnnk of water), whereas for other behaviors, cause, with the situation being a certain person In some cases, these frequencies might be quite different (causing a senous the person could even be seen as intending to cause the other accident) person's behavior Her mother-in-law wants her to be uncom- Such a research program would be helpful in addressing our fortable, and therefore is cnucizmg her, and that is making her lack of knowledge of the vanous ways people in different nervous However, the other person's behavior would not have cultures explain behavior However, although suggesUve, tt to be viewed as intentional would suU leave open the developmental quesuon How is it A fifth sort of cause, rarely discussed in the literature but that understanding minds develops*? The ethnographic and ex- certainly seen in this discussion and elsewhere, invokes inten- penmental data just descnbed seem problemauc for the theo- tional agents of special ontological status In many societies, nes presented earlier people commonly believe that dead ancestors "hve" among them (l e , the Tallensi, Fortes, 1987), and might even control EVALUATING THE THEORIES their actions in some cases People in other cultures believe One advantage of looking across cultures when studying that ghosts (not necessarily ancestral) can take over one's body basic psychological processes is that the resulung evidence can and cause one to behave in certain ways, for example, Fajans help shed light on what might result from biology versus en- (1985) descnbed an incident m which a Baining man explained culturation Because naUvist theones focus on biological fac- his own conduct with reference to a ghost having taken execu- tors in development, cultural differences can be problematic tive control The ancient Greeks ascribed at least unusual ac- Consider the theory that the concepts that make up folk tions to the gods (Wilkes, 1988), and even in European- psychology are burned into human ROM (so to speak) One Amencan culture, the Judeo-Chnstian God can be considered concept very basic to our own understanding of mind is that of to cause events or behaviors To return to the jigglmg-leg ex- mind Itself, but the Illongot appear to lack an analogous con- ample, one might say her leg jiggles because she has Parkin- cept One might retort that mind is a denved concept, and that son's disease, because God has plans for her to become a more basic ones are universal, but even those seem to vary For special advocate for Parkinson's sufferers We seem to invoke example, several ethnographers have noted that other cultures such explanations to find meaning in unfortunate events lack our strong thmkmg-feeling disuncuon (e g , Fajans, 1985, In all the explanations so far, mtenuon is suU at root, but in Lutz, 1988) How innate concepts support such differences has some cases, the intenUon is considered to be in others How- not been addressed Clearly, in each culture, mental state con- ever, there are also explanations that lack an intentional com- cepts anse in part through cultural U-ansmission Perhaps there ponent altogether One example is biological explanation In IS some component of mind or thinking that one sees every- the case of the jigglmg leg, we might say her leg is jigghng where, that might be innate Theonsts need to specify just what because she just had three cups of coffee Modem philosophers the innate portion is, for each concept, rather than use English etimes argue that this mode of explanation will or at least words that denote a complex aggregate of comjwnents One should replace belief-desire talk in folk psychology, hence we difficulty here is that whatever is innate (if anything) might be would say, "I am in a desire-state" rather than "I want" so malleable that m no cultural group would one even see the (Stich, 1983) A second nomntentional explanauon can be found in astrology, one's behaviors might be atmbuted to Traits are a fuzzy case and might be considered part of the intenUon- alignments of planets blmd category

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nusdc, yet their parents were not, whereas Manus children s Child Development. 62 98-110 were not animistic and their parents were She explained the 997 Ch El

differences in children as enculturation, arguing (a) that, unlike / Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (2niai pp 301-346) Boston AUe, English, the Manus language rarely used metaphors or other and Bacon constructions that humanize objects (e g , by making them sub- Hammersly M (1990) Readmg ethnographic research A critical guide London Long

jects of lntenttonal verbs), (b) that, relauve to Amencans, Ma- Hams°PL (1989) Children and emotion. Oxford, England Basil Bl»ckwell nus children were raised in such a way as to give crucial weight Hams, PL (1992) From simulation to folk psychology The ca and Language 7(1 & 2) 121-143 to physical cause-effect relauons, and (c) that Manus parents Hams PL (1995) Developmental constramts on did not use ammisuc explanauons with children Femandez Dols, A S R Manstead, & J WeUenkamp (Eds ) Everyday conceptions of emotions (pp 353-372) Doidrecht, Netheriands Kluwer The deeper suggesUon is that children nught be influenced Harter, S & Whitesell, N R (1989) Developmental changes m children s understanding by their culture to entertam a vanety of noUons It seems quite of smgle, multiple, and blended emotion concepts ta C Saami & PL Hams (Eds) Children s understandmg of emotion (pp 81-116) Cambndge England

plausible that children are willing to entertain a huge vanety of Cambndge Umversity Press explanauons, and that the explanauons they conUnue with are Humphrey N (1984) Consciousness regained Oxford, England Oxford University Press the ones that are reiterated b y the cultural surround This idea Johnson C N & WeUman, H M (1982) Children s developing cc fits with what we know about neurogenesis Brains begin by and the brain Child Development 52 222-234 making vastly more axon-dendnte connecuons than they will Kohlberg L (1966) Cogmtive stages and prescbool educauon Human Development 9 5-17 ever use, and the process of development is a process of panng Lesbe AM (1994) ToMM ToBy and Agency Core architecture and domam specific away the connecuons that are not used If such is also the case ity In L A Hirschfield & S A Gelman (Eds ) Mappmg the mmd Domam speci ficity in cogmtion and culture (pp 119-148) Cambndge England Cambndge for folk psychology, then the mteresUng quesUon is, what is the Umversity Press range of possibiliUes that children will consider, and how does Lillard, A S (m press) Ethnopsychologies Cultural vanation m theones of mind Psy chological Bulletin. each culture focus children on one or another of those possi- Lutz,C (1988) Unnatural emotions Chicago Umversity of Chicago Press bihues"? Studying the development of children's understanding Markus H R & Kitayama, S (1991) Culture and the self Implications for ( emotion and motivation Psychological Review 98 224-253 of the mind across very different cultures will help to answer Mead M (1932) An mvestigation of the thought of pnmidve children, with special this quesUon reference to animism Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 62 173-190 MiUer J (1984) Culture and the development of eveiyday social explanation Journal of Personality and SocuU Psychology 46 %l-978 Acknowledgments—This work was made possible in part by a NaUonal Moms MW APeng K (1994) Culnire and cause Amencan and Chinese attnbuUons Science Foundauon grant (No DGE-9550152) for social and physical events Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 949-971 0 NeiU, D K Astington, J W, & Flavell, J H (1993) Young children s understanding of the role t h a i sensoiy expenences play m knowledge acquisiDon Developmental REFERENCES Psychology, 63 474-490 PiUow BH (1989) Early understanding of perception as a source of knowledge Journal AVIS J & Hams PL (1991) Bebef-desire reasoung a m o n g Baka children Evidence of Expenmental Child Psychology 47 116-129 for a umvereal conccpaon of imiid ChUd Developmml 62 46(M67 Premack D (1992) On the ongms of domam-specific pnmiUves In H L Pick P Broek. & D C KiuU (Eds ) Cognition Conceptual and methodological tss Baron-Cohen S (1995) Mmdbluubtess An essay on autism and theory of mmd London MIT Press 188-200) Washmgton DC Amencan Psychological Associanon Premack. 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