Beliefs Of Actors Research Articles

The Impact of Actor's Belief on Audience Emotional Resonance and Emotional Transmission

This study examines the impact of actors' Belief on Emotional Resonance and Emotional Transmission of the audience, revealing the key role of Belief in the performing arts. Belief is the actor's ability to regard fictional situations and characters as real in the performance process, which makes the performance strongly infectious and authentic. Through Belief, actors are able to realize a high degree of integration between their characters and themselves, thus impressing the audience and creating Emotional Resonance. This study analyzes the impact of Belief on performance effect, characterization and emotional expression, explores the interactive mechanism of Emotional Transmission and Resonance, enhances the understanding of performance psychology, and reveals the complex interactive relationship between the performing arts and audience psychology.

Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia.

Previous research has shown that moral judgments are affected by social cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind (ToM). This study examines how information about an actor's beliefs and the consequences of their actions affect the moral evaluation of the character's behavior in social events. Our research builds upon previous studies, which have shown that these factors contribute differently to moral judgments made by both adults and young children. This study aimed to explore how participants with schizophrenia and healthy controls read stories about social situations in the context of moral judgments. The study used the research procedure that included 4 variants of 16 scenarios describing social situations, and thus comprising 64 stories. After each story, participants evaluated their confidence level on a 4-point scale. To assess delusional beliefs, the Polish adaptation of the Peters Delusion Inventory (PDI) questionnaire and the Paranoia Checklist (PCh) were used. Respondents completed these questionnaires after completing the scenario test procedure. In social situations, patients with paranoid schizophrenia were found to evaluate actions of protagonists who attempted to harm another person more leniently than when it was an accident. Conversely, healthy individuals judged those actors who expressed intentions to hurt another person significantly more harshly than in an accident situation. Metacognition measures show that paranoid schizophrenia patients make moral judgments with high confidence, despite being based on an incorrect reading of the other person's intentions. The study indicates that ToM has a significant impact on the moral judgment of others. Decreased moral cognition can result from both positive and negative symptoms. Deficits related to metacognition can also sustain such cognitive distortions.

Understanding the Dynamics of More Restrictive Medicines Policy: A Case Study of Codeine Up-Scheduling in Australia.

There has been increasing concern over opioid-related harms across the world. In Australia in 2018, codeine-containing products were up-scheduled from over-the-counter access at pharmacies, to requiring a prescription. The drug regulator's decision to up-schedule was contentious and widely debated, due to the potentially large impact on consumers and healthcare professionals. This study aimed to analyse influences on the codeine up-scheduling policy. This retrospective policy analysis used the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to understand how policy actors with shared beliefs formed adversarial coalitions to shape policy. Data were drawn from documents (regulator policy documents, public submissions, news reports, organisational media releases and position statements) and semi-structured interviews with 15 key policy actors. Codes were generated relating to policy processes and actor beliefs; broad themes included the role of health professionals, perceptions of opioids, impact on consumers, and the role of government in healthcare. Two coalitions in this policy subsystem were identified: (1) supportive [with respect to the up-scheduling], and (2) opposing. The key evident beliefs of the supportive coalition were that the harms of codeine outweighed the benefits, and that government regulation was the best pathway for protecting consumers. The opposing coalition believed that the benefits of codeine accessible through pharmacists outweighed any harms, and consumers should manage their health without any more intervention than necessary. The policy decision reflected the influence of the supportive coalition, and this analysis highlighted the importance of their public health framing of the issue, the acceptability of their experts and supporting evidence, and the perceived legitimacy of the up-scheduling process. Understanding these coalitions, their beliefs, and how they are translated through existing policy processes and institutions provides insight for those interested in influencing future health policy. Specific lessons include the importance of strategic frames and advocacy, and engagement with formal policy processes.

Application of "Actor Interface Analysis" to Examine Practices of Power in Health Policy Implementation: An Interpretive Synthesis and Guiding Steps.

Background: The difference between ‘policy as promised’ and ‘policy as practiced’ can be attributed to implementation gaps. Actor relationships and power struggles are central to these gaps but have been studied using only a handful of theoretical and analytical frameworks. Actor interface analysis provides a methodological entry point to examine policy implementation and practices of power. As this approach has rarely been used in health policy analysis, this article aims, first, to synthesise knowledge about use of actor interface analysis in health policy implementation and, second, to provide guiding steps to conduct actor interface analysis. Methods: We conducted an interpretive synthesis of literature using a set of 6 papers, selected using purposeful searches and focusing on actor dynamics and practices of power in policy experiences. Drawing upon the framework synthesis approach and using a guiding framework, the synthesis focused on 4 questions – the type of actor interfaces formed, the power practices observed, the effect of such power practices on implementation and the underpinning factors for the power practices. Results: Multiple interface encounters and power practices were identified which included domination, control, contestation, collaborations, resistance, and negotiations. The lifeworlds of actors that underpinned the power practices, were rooted in social-organisational power relationships, personal experiences and interests, and social-ideological standpoints like values and beliefs of actors. The power practices influenced implementation both positively and negatively. Conclusion: Based on the learnings from synthesis, this paper provides guiding steps for conducting actor interface analysis. Additionally, it presents 2 useful tools for power analysis: (1) ‘actor lifeworlds,’ to understand underpinning factors for power practices and (2) relationships of lifeworlds, interface encounters and power practices with their effect on policy implementation. We suggest that interface analysis should be applied in more empirical settings and across varied health policy experiences to nuance the method better.

Policy change and National Forest Programs: a Swiss experience of coalitions, external and internal events

ABSTRACT This article aims to understand policy change by analyzing the external and internal events as well as actor resources, actor beliefs and coalitions. Empirically, we have selected the Swiss forest policy system and analyze two consecutive Swiss National Forest Programs and the related revision process of the forest law between 2004 and 2016. Exploring pathways of change according to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, we find that increased actor resources in the form of expertise, finances and political recognition alongside external and internal events – made the forest issue more salient – contribute to a successful policy change. These factors led to an altered actor coalition structure with less clear-cut positions and the shared recognition that change was necessary. The results show how Forest Policy Programs may increase their chances of producing policy change over time, as the first program failed to lead to policy change, while the second was successful.

Coordenação de coalizões de defesa utilizando mapas cognitivos

Resumo Este artigo traz uma contribuição à análise de coalizões de defesa em processos de formulação ou mudança de políticas públicas, conjugando modelos de análise de políticas públicas e da pesquisa operacional (PO). Jenkins-Smith, Nohrstedt, Weible et al. (2014) observam, a partir dos resultados de algumas aplicações empíricas, que somente as crenças dos atores envolvidos não contam toda a história da mudança da política e ressaltam que o grau de conflito entre os atores ou as coalizões está relacionado às suas percepções quanto ao alcance das ameaças, dos objetivos ou das ações de outros atores, às suas crenças acerca de uma política. Diante do exposto, propõe-se uma abordagem para análise do grau de coordenação inter e intracoalizões políticas em processos de mudança institucional, a partir da identificação das crenças, dos objetivos declarados e das alternativas políticas dos atores, utilizando o pensamento focado no valor (value-focused thinking - VFT) associado aos mapas cognitivos causais. A partir da conjugação desses métodos, espera-se, por meio da comparação dos mapas cognitivos, identificar as coalizões políticas e caracterizar os ambientes colaborativos ou conflituosos, bem como identificar as agendas políticas com variados graus de cooperação ou conflito.

Advocacy Coalitions in Transport Policy: A Case of Rail Sector in Croatia

Abstract The author analyses the transport policy of the rail sector in Croatia and tries to give answers regarding the policy stability and change based on the actors in the rail transport. The aim of the paper is to give an overview of the development of the rail sector in modern Croatia and to explore, in a larger period, the relations and beliefs of all types of actors in this area at the national level. As a theoretical background, the author uses an advocacy coalition framework, which states that policy actors are grouped into coalitions within a policy subsystem in which they advocate their beliefs in order to transfer them into government programs, thus provoking change and stability in the system. The author methodologically uses qualitative content analysis in the form of coding of the collected material based on transcripts of interviews with actors, official documents, and transcript of one parliamentary debate. Following is a review of the historical development of the rail sector in Croatia, with an emphasis on the post-independence Croatia period, which provides a basis for concrete research findings. The results are presented in two units: (1) identified actors and their relations, and (2) beliefs of actors. The follow-up discussion points to the existence of similar patterns of beliefs among the actors at the national level. However, the empirical material collected does not establish clear relationships that could be classified as an advocacy coalition. In conclusion, the author argues that the coded material does not give away any importance of the coalitions of actors at the national level for policy stability and change of rail sector leading to recommendations for further research in this area, where other transport sectors should be included as well as international actors.

The bourgeoisie and the scholar

Deirdre McCloskey is a true sui generis in our intellectual universe. In latest (and last, by her own promise) installment of her Bourgeoisie trilogy, she had brought together many of ideas proposed in two earlier volumes, as well as in a long stream of essays and lectures. She is an economist like no economist: fiercely opposed to domination of game theory, vociferously suspicious of use of mindless statistical significance in empirical work, and resistant to institutional turn in economic history. In these three volumes she effectively demolishes idea of historical materialism. Economic forces do not determine what people believe and think, she maintains; it's way around. Ideas determine how people act and behave, whether will invest or waste, accept bribes or serve public honestly, whether will be makers or takers, think outside box or remain loyal to age-old conceptions, and hence whether economy will be static and stagnant or dynamic and vibrant.Specifically, she asks this question about modern economic growth, or what she calls the Great Enrichment (a term that is to be preferred to the Great Divergence, which stresses gap opening up between East and West in eighteenth century rather than miraculous rise in living standards). The argument, in a nutshell, is that in a few core areas in western part of Europe, prestige and social standing of economically active and ambitious bourgeois agents-merchants, entrepreneurs, innovative industrialists and farmers, bankers and so on-began to increase. The Bourgeois revaluation or deal is what accounts for modern economic growth. There was a sharp rise in society's receptiveness to improvers (p. 472). Slowly, and in face of much resistance, people began to shed notion that trade and voluntary transactions between consenting adults were improving for all sides. The world was understood to be positive-sum.In words, culture (a word she eschews, but that seems unavoidable here) of society as a whole mattered, not just beliefs of actors themselves. Not much else changed in Europe before industrial Revolution, she feels, that would explain take-off that led into Great Enrichment. We must look to ideas, which did change at right time in right places, and greatly, as she puts it (p. 470). I cannot possibly disagree: indeed, my own Gifts of Athena (2002) and my Enlightened economy (2009) make a similar point. But McCloskey emphasizes a different angle. The hierarchy of values in every society determines what careers young men and women choose and how hard try to succeed. in a military-oriented society will stress physical prowess, in a scholarly society will strive to become learned in books that matter. in a capitalist society in which commerce and economic success are respected, entrepreneurship and profitable innovation will thrive and economic prosperity will ensue. But profits were not everything, much less only thing. People are not just driven by greed (prudence in her somewhat quaint nomenclature), have ethical beliefs and care what others think of them. For a scholar trained in modern economics, this is a bold, heterodox thought. But it may have advantage of being correct.In making her arguments, McCloskey treads on grounds rarely visited by economists: she cites novelists, philosophers, playwrights, political theorists, poets, The theory of moral sentiments (the other Smith masterpiece that most economists skip) (1976 [1759]), and what not. If that makes her arguments more persuasive to her fellow economists or not remains to be seen. Indeed, at times her tone slides into a condescension that some readers may find off-putting. I have read all these books in humanities and philosophy, she says, and they have not. So are in no position to question my conclusions. one scholar is advised by her to re-read The theory of moral sentiments-'slowly. …

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

AbstractIn 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.

Action adaptation during natural unfolding social scenes influences action recognition and inferences made about actor beliefs.

When observing another individual's actions, we can both recognize their actions and infer their beliefs concerning the physical and social environment. The extent to which visual adaptation influences action recognition and conceptually later stages of processing involved in deriving the belief state of the actor remains unknown. To explore this we used virtual reality (life-size photorealistic actors presented in stereoscopic three dimensions) to see how visual adaptation influences the perception of individuals in naturally unfolding social scenes at increasingly higher levels of action understanding. We presented scenes in which one actor picked up boxes (of varying number and weight), after which a second actor picked up a single box. Adaptation to the first actor's behavior systematically changed perception of the second actor. Aftereffects increased with the duration of the first actor's behavior, declined exponentially over time, and were independent of view direction. Inferences about the second actor's expectation of box weight were also distorted by adaptation to the first actor. Distortions in action recognition and actor expectations did not, however, extend across different actions, indicating that adaptation is not acting at an action-independent abstract level but rather at an action-dependent level. We conclude that although adaptation influences more complex inferences about belief states of individuals, this is likely to be a result of adaptation at an earlier action recognition stage rather than adaptation operating at a higher, more abstract level in mentalizing or simulation systems.

Modulation of Neural Activity in the Temporoparietal Junction with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Changes the Role of Beliefs in Moral Judgment.

Judgments about whether an action is morally right or wrong typically depend on our capacity to infer the actor’s beliefs and the outcomes of the action. Prior neuroimaging studies have found that mental state (e.g., beliefs, intentions) attribution for moral judgment involves a complex neural network that includes the temporoparietal junction (TPJ). However, neuroimaging studies cannot demonstrate a direct causal relationship between the activity of this brain region and mental state attribution for moral judgment. In the current study, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to transiently alter neural activity in the TPJ. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three stimulation treatments (right anodal/left cathodal tDCS, left anodal/right cathodal tDCS, or sham stimulation). Each participant was required to complete two similar tasks of moral judgment before receiving tDCS and after receiving tDCS. We studied whether tDCS to the TPJ altered mental state attribution for moral judgment. The results indicated that restraining the activity of the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ) or the left the temporoparietal junction (LTPJ) decreased the role of beliefs in moral judgments and led to an increase in the dependance of the participants’ moral judgments on the action’s consequences. We also found that the participants exhibited reduced reaction times both in the cases of intentional harms and attempted harms after receiving right cathodal/left anodal tDCS to the TPJ. These findings inform and extend the current neural models of moral judgment and moral development in typically developing people and in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

Believing This and Alieving That: Theorizing Affect and Intuitions in International Politics

Rationalist models of decision making typically follow the general form of desire + belief = action. But determining an actor's beliefs and desires often proves challenging. One set of theories turns to psychology—and in particular emotions—to uncover how emotions help to shape and strengthen beliefs. Some of this work establishes a fit between emotions and the rationalist paradigm. It holds that emotions account for more than irrational behaviors; they also serve as a source of rational belief. Feeling, it claims, is believing. I argue that if actors belive in the reasonability of their feelings, then this move is warranted. But a range of behavior defies this logic. Instead, I suggest that actors often find themselves torn between contradictory affective intuitions, on the one hand, and rational beliefs, on the other. In consequence, they hold rational beliefs, but their resulting behavior qualifies as irrational. I apply existing work on the distinction between belief and alief to make sense of this phenomenon. I illustrate my claims through a rereading of the security dilemma—where irrational intuitions, in conjunction with rational beliefs, fuel conflict.

Keyakinan Keagamaan dalam Konflik antarsukubangsa

This article attempts to show that in the bloody conflicts between ethnic groups, individual ethnic patterns that are individually owned become categorical patterns. No longer are individuals the targets for the ethnic groups in conflict, but rather the categories with the attributes of each ethnic group in conflict. Thus, the attack upon categories based upon their characteristic do no take into account the sex, age or social position of the people displaying these characteristic as attributes of their ethnicity. This article also attempts to show that in each bloody ethnic group conflict, religious beliefs may permeate. Ethnic group conflicts can therefore change (or be made to change)into religious conflict between adherents of different beliefs. However, this does not mean that every ethnic conflict will change into a religious conflict. On the one hand, the religious beliefs of actors in an ethnic conflict serve to reinforce ethnicity and the spirit for eradicating the ethnic category that is the enemy. On the other hand, the religious beliefs of actors dominate ethnicity and take over the latter's function in the effort to eradicate the religious categories of the enemy. Thus, ethnic conflict changed into religious conflict. This essay uses cases from early riots in Ambon, the Sambas riot in West Kalimantan, and the case of Dayak-Madura in Central Kalimantan.

Alexithymia increases moral acceptability of accidental harms

Previous research shows that when people judge moral acceptability of others' harmful behaviour, they not only take into account information about the consequences of the act but also an actor's belief while carrying out the act. A two-process model has been proposed to account for this pattern of moral judgements and posits: (1) a causal process that detects the presence of a harmful outcome and is motivated by empathic aversion stemming from victim suffering; (2) a mental state-based process that attributes beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. to the agent in question and is motivated by imagining personally carrying out harmful actions. One prediction of this model would be that personality traits associated with empathy deficits would find accidental harms more acceptable not because they focus on innocent intentions but because they have reduced concern for the victim's well-being. In this study, we show that one such personality trait, viz. alexithymia, indeed exhibits the predicted pattern and this increased acceptability of accidental harm in alexithymia is mediated by reduced dispositional empathic concern. Results attest to the validity of two-process model of intent-based moral judgements and emphasise key role affective empathy plays in harm-based moral judgements.

Eye movements reveal sustained implicit processing of others' mental states.

The ability to attribute mental states to others is crucial for social competency. To assess mentalizing abilities, in false-belief tasks participants attempt to identify an actor's belief about an object's location as opposed to the object's actual location. Passing this test on explicit measures is typically achieved by 4 years of age, but recent eye movement studies reveal registration of others' beliefs by 7 to 15 months. Consequently, a 2-path mentalizing system has been proposed, consisting of a late developing, cognitively demanding component and an early developing, implicit/automatic component. To date, investigations on the implicit system have been based on single-trial experiments only or have not examined how it operates across time. In addition, no study has examined the extent to which participants are conscious of the belief states of others during these tasks. Thus, the existence of a distinct implicit mentalizing system is yet to be demonstrated definitively. Here we show that adults engaged in a primary unrelated task display eye movement patterns consistent with mental state attributions across a sustained temporal period. Debriefing supported the hypothesis that this mentalizing was implicit. It appears there indeed exists a distinct implicit mental state attribution system.

A New Capitalist Order: Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Eastern Europe by Hilary s> Appel (review)

REVIEWS I9I since this provision would weaken their grip on power' (pp. I75-76). Uzbekistan: 'the Uzbek record so far bears out the favourable view of the "evolutionary-institutional" model, rather than the neo-liberal one, at least in Central and East Asian circumstances' (p. I96). Tajikistan: 'inadequate economic growth in Tajikistanis to a great extent related to the insufficient development of marketinstitutions'(p. 214). Kyrgyzstan:'there is a quite considerablespecificityof the situationin Kyrgyzstan i.. .1') the small size of the countryand its unfavourablegeographiclocation, 2) the lack of rich and easily tradablenaturalresources,3) the strongdependence on external aid' (p. 246). Finally, Kazakhstan: 'transitionhas eliminated much of the industrial base and left the Kazakhstaneconomy dependent upon raw materials- especially oil and gas' but 'the sheer size of the country'sproven reserves [...] means that it is not necessarily undesirable to remain primarily oil-dependent for some time to come' (p. 267). What about the future? Some of the ten are already into institutional reform; some see hope in it. Some describe their symptoms; some despair. One has adequate energy. But an outcome Ofer and Pomfret suggest is that 'those among the CIS states that will meet the institutionalchallenge more readilywill find higher and more sustainablegrowth, and the global economy will move in to magnify the results by providing capital and know-how' (p. 274). Glasgow W. V. WALLACE Appel, Hilary. A New CapitalistOrder: Privatization and Ideologv in Russiaand EasternEurope.Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Universityof PittsburghPress,Pittsburgh,PA, 2004. Viii + 248 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $27.95 (paperback). THE collapse of the state socialist societies was greeted in the West and in the countries themselveswith euphoria and expectations of a movement to a capitalistsociety and its associatedforms of democracy and civil society. The outcomes have disappointed, and the unmet expectations of wealth creation and civil participationhave led to frustrationand, in many cases, to nostalgia for the Communistpast. There is no area more controversialthan the topic of the privatizationof state assets. The process has been beset with corruption and collusion and has led to material deprivation. Some, followingJoseph Stiglitz, have emphasized the determiningrole of neo-liberalideology, driven by international institutions. Hilary Appel, however, emphasizes the importance of the ways that ideology shaped the preferences of local actors. Her empirical focus is on the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation and she deals with the policies, contexts and outcomes of privatization.She also makes comparisonswith Slovakiaand Poland. The book provides a valuable contributionto our knowledge of the privatizationprocess in these countries. Appel's expressedobjectiveis not to explain why a policy to privatizeassets was adopted, but with the choices of howto privatize. Her contention is that ideological factors'drovethe privatisationprocess'(p. 7)by shapingindividual I92 SEER, 85, I, 2007 and group action. She contends that first, the ideological beliefs of policy makersshape the design of their initialproposed reforms.Second, that beliefs of actors in society shape the definition of interests in society. Third, that values of policy makersinfluence implementation,through the ways in which they attempt to secure compliance. Finally, she considersthat the compatibility between the ideological foundationsof elite policy makersand those of the masses affect the implementation of policy. In the Czech Republic, the privatizingelites around Vaclav Klaus articulated positive virtues of privateproperty.A privatepropertyregime would, it was contended, returnthe Czechs to theirdesiredstateof well being nearer to prosperousWestern Europe of which they had previouslybeen a part, and furtherfrom Communism, which had been imposed. Workersand managers, being closer to the Communistswhen in power, were then in a weak position to claim special treatment with respect to the division of property, and a general public privatization based on vouchers had more popular support. In the Russian case, however, there was no comparable Western European society to return to (there was no call from the European Union), and Communism was a part of Russian political culture, rather than being a foreign import. Moreover, rights to private property had no generalized public support.Anatoly Chubais and other privatizerslegitimatedthe transfer of state assets to the public domain by appealing to materialist sentiment: possession of personal assets, it was proclaimed, would make everybody richer. For the privatizationpolicy makers this was a rational approach and did not need...

Is rational choice humanity’s most distinctive trait?

The Greeks and the thinkers of the Enlightenment regarded reason as the defining quality of humankind. The Utilitarians limited it to the selection of means to any given end for action excluding the determination of moral values and social institutions. This became a postulate of classical and neoclassical economics borrowed by rational choice theory in sociology. James Coleman accepted as rational any action based on the actor's belief in its rationality, which would not rule out the delusions of psychotics. Despite this and other concessions that treat almost any explicable action as rational, sociologists have correctly criticized rational choice theory for ignoring the pervasive effects of socialization in achieving the internalization of norms and values. Rational choice theory also fails to illuminate human emotions and motivations, pictured in their full complexity in great literature.

Is only seeing really believing?: Sources of the true belief in the false belief task

It has been argued that young preschoolers cannot correctly attribute a false belief to a deceived actor (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). The present study considers three possible sources of difficulty for the young child on the false belief task: (a) The child may be unable to change the truth value of a representation as is required in the standard false belief task; (b) the fact that the deceived actor's belief was acquired by visual experience, normally a reliable source of information, makes it harder for the child to consider it false; and (c) the child's own visual experience of the object's true location, and therefore the certainty with which the child knows the object's true location, make it impossible to ignore. The present experiment tests these hypotheses by contrasting the standard false belief task with two testimony conditions. In both testimony conditions the false belief is stipulated as false from the beginning (the deceiver announces that he will tell a lie); no change of truth status is involved. The difference in the two testimony conditions is that in the ‘seen’ condition the subject sees the object's true location, while in the ‘unseen’ condition the subject is merely told the object's true location. Those 3-year-olds in the ‘unseen’ condition successfully attributed a false belief, while 3-year-olds in the two other conditions did not. This pattern of results supports the third hypothesis.

Young Children's Attribution of Action to Beliefs and Desires

When and how children understand beliefs and desires is central to whether they are ever childhood realists and when they evidence a theory of mind. Adults typically construe human action as resulting from an actor's beliefs and desires, a mentalistic interpretation that represents a common and fundamental form of psychological explanation. We investigated children's ability to do likewise. In Experiment 1, 60 subjects were asked to explain why story characters performed simple actions, such as looking under a piano for a kitten. Both preschoolers and adults gave predominantly psychological explanations, attributing the actions to the actor's beliefs and desires. Even 3-year-olds attributed actions to beliefs and false beliefs, demonstrating an understanding of belief not evident in previous research. In Experiment 2, 24 3-year-olds were tested further on their understanding of false belief. They were given both false belief prediction and explanation tasks. Children performed well on explanation taks, attributing an anomalous action to the actor's false belief, even when they failed to predict correctly what action would follow from a false belief. We concluded that 3-year-olds and adults share a fundamentally similar construal of human action in terms of beliefs and desires, even false beliefs.

Young Children's Attribution of Action to Beliefs and Desires

When and how children understand beliefs and desires is central to whether they are ever childhood realists and when they evidence a theory of mind. Adults typically construe human action as resulting from an actor's beliefs and desires, a mentalistic interpretation that represents a common and fundamental form of psychological explanation. We investigated children's ability to do likewise. In Experiment 1, 60 subjects were asked to explain why story characters performed simple actions, such as looking under a piano for a kitten. Both preschoolers and adults gave predominantly psychological explanations, attributing the actions to the actor's beliefs and desires. Even 3-year-olds attributed actions to beliefs and false beliefs, demonstrating an understanding of belief not evident in previous research. In Experiment 2, 24 3-year-olds were tested further on their understanding of false belief. They were given both false belief prediction and explanation tasks. Children performed well on explanation taks, attributing an anomalous action to the actor's false belief, even when they failed to predict correctly what action would follow from a false belief. We concluded that 3-year-olds and adults share a fundamentally similar construal of human action in terms of beliefs and desires, even false beliefs.