The development and evolution of psychological theory
December 17, 2020 09:21 Source: "Chinese Social Sciences" December 17, 2020 Total 2071 Author: Su Yanjie Liu Sizhen

Theory of Mind,refers to the person's wish for yourself and others、Belief、Motivation and other psychological states and psychological status and understanding of the relationship between the relationship between the relationship between the relationship,The ability to explain and predict behavior accordingly。This concept is the first time that psychologists have proposed the first time when studying the cognitive ability of chimpanzees in the 1970s。Researchers think,Individuals can be self -、Psychological status of others or other species is attributed,The reason why this inferred system is regarded as a theory,On the one hand, these internal states cannot be directly observed,On the other hand, this inference system can be used to explain and predict behavior。

For more than 40 years,From social psychology、Cognitive Psychology、Development psychology、Clinical psychology and scholars in the field of anthropology attempts to explore and explain the cognitive mechanism and evolution of psychological theory from different perspectives。Is this important psychological ability unique to humans? if not,What is the difference between different species in this ability? What are the specific performances?,Still this ability leads to the emergence of complex society?

We often understand scientific issues through two paths: First, from a relatively micro angle,Recent causes of looking for scientific issues, For example, the development process and cognitive mechanism of psychological ability; the second is from a relatively macro perspective,Far cause of scientific issues,For example, the function of exploring psychological ability,Why is a certain psychological ability reserved in the Bet365 app download evolutionary process,What unique adaptation does it have。

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Desire (Desire) and Belief are two types of psychological states often involved in psychological theoretical research。Wish refers to the intention or goal of an individual to engage in a certain activity,Belief refers to the understanding of an individual formed according to his current experience when engaged in a certain activity。For example,"Want" if you want to eat fruits is wish,And where the "consider" that the fruit is placed is the belief,Through the understanding of individual wishes and beliefs,We can judge where the individual will go to get fruits。

Human babies can understand that different individuals have different wishes at 9 months,At 18 months,,Began to be able to understand that others can have the desire or preferences that are inconsistent with yourself。Animals also have the same ability -male Eurasian crow will actively seek puppets from females in the breeding season,The way they ask for a puppet is to give the food they found to the female。The experimenters make female Eurasian crows more like a certain food by manipulating the experimental procedure (assuming food A) (this process can be seen by the male Eurasian crow),and then two foods for male Eurasian crow (assuming food A and food B) and let them choose freely,As a result, it was found that the male would choose more food a dedicated to the female。

Research evidence about the understanding of beliefs is more complicated and diverse。Human research indicates,In the classic wrong belief mission, Children usually need to be around 4 years old to better understand that others may hold the wrong belief in this world。But this task will involve words、Executive function and memory and other psychological abilities。Children's performance may be the result of the common effect of multiple psychological abilities,instead of psychological Bet365 lotto review understanding。If the level of psychological understanding of children is enough to support them to make the correct judgment,However, due to the lack of execution function, you cannot suppress the truth you know,Then it will fail in the above tasks。Therefore,Later research will exclude the interference of other mental abilities,is the same in animal research。Researchers in Grand Ape (Blint、Gorilla and Matnotelet) research,Let the big ape watch the video clip of the mountain gorilla "King Kong" played by people,and use eye movement technology to record its gaze mode,After excluding the interference of the psychological ability such as execution function,It is found that the big ape can not only understand what kind of knowledge and experience of the gorilla individual in the video clip,Can also understand the beliefs formed based on these knowledge and experience。

The similarities and results of the method and results of human and animal research are manifested in: on the one hand,Some exquisite research methods such as non -verbal tasks,Researchers have discovered that humans and certain animals have psychological theories; on the other hand,,Human and animals have differences in the performance of psychological theory。Human psychological theory gradually matures with individual development,Finally showing complex and advanced psychological understanding ability,Related evidence of animal research,The best psychological understanding ability expressed by animals is far less than that of human adult individuals。This commonity and differences remind us,Psychological theory appears early in life,and mature with the development of the individual。This ability is not unique to humans,It may be developed by language、Education、Cultural and other factors promotion,But these factors are not the root mechanism of its generation。The Bet365 lotto review consistency of cross -species reveals that the psychological understanding ability may have unique adaptation significance,What does it mean to explore what it does,Then you need to explore the evolutionary process,Then the reason why this ability can be retained in the process of natural selection。

  Psychological theory has unique adaptation significance

We need to continue to carry out social interaction with others in daily life,One necessary psychological ability in social interaction is psychological theory。Maybe we often don't consciousness ourselves,But psychological theory plays an important role all the time。What is the uniqueness of this psychological ability? Maybe we can get some explanations from animal research。

Early studies found,Our close relative chimpanzees will ignore the social clues provided by the experiments in the cooperation situation, But in the competitive situation, you can use social clues to obtain food more fully; while the performance of gorillas in the cooperation situation is stronger than chimpanzees。Based on the above evidence,We can speculate that the acquisition of psychological theory may be related to cooperation and competition in social interaction,Different from the living environment and social structure,Competition within certain species is more critical,and some other species internal cooperation is more critical,Therefore, the difference between psychological theory in different situations is expressed。

Some researchers have criticized the above research lack of ecological validity,That is, the real life scene of experimental situations and animals such as chimpanzees is too large。The social clues provided by the experimenters are likely to be used by chimpanzees in daily life (such as gesture)。Therefore,Later researchers further explored the behavior of different species of animals in the cooperation situation on the basis of improving research methods,As a result, a Bet365 lotto review large ape (such as chimpanzees、Orangutan, Gorilla, etc.)、macaque、Dogs and some birds can show their understanding of other individual psychological states in the cooperation situation。

The difference between our psychological theoretical and other animals may be the key to the formation of unique and complex human culture。Before the differentiation of humans and chimpanzees,Our common ancestors may already have a basic psychological theory,During the differentiation process,Modern Homo sapiens have obtained a more complex psychological theory in the evolutionary process。We pay more attention to the understanding of shared intents in social interaction,Promoting cooperation between individuals; and due to the characteristics of resource distribution in the living environment and the differences in social structure,Blints pay more attention to competition in social interaction,Therefore, there will be differences in the performance in different research paradigms。An important issue that researchers pay attention to is the motivation difference between different species when showing psychological theory,For example, the competitive situation can promote the psychological theory of chimpanzees,and the situation of cooperation can promote the psychological theory of humans and gorillas。Different behaviors reflect different motivations,Different motivations mean different choices facing different species,Maybe competitive chimpanzees have more survival advantages,and cooperative humans and gorillas have more survival advantages。A strong social tendency (cooperative behavior) is likely to be one of the important reasons for human society to develop to this day。

In short,Psychological theory concepts are proposed from animal research,The continued continuous animal research evidence not only reveals the inherent cognitive mechanism of psychological theory,And can help us understand the significance of this Bet365 app download ability in the evolutionary process,Especially the unique role played for the formation of human society。

Most of the animals of Lingchangmi show the understanding of other individual psychological states,But some birds also show the corresponding psychological theory。The brain structure of birds is very different from humans,Under the condition of huge differences in the physiological structure,But showing a similar psychological understanding ability,Explain that the physiological basis and cognitive mechanism it depends on it is very basic,Maybe this ability does not need to go through long -term learning。This difference also shows that the psychological theory has appeared in the early stage of the psychological theory。

Based on existing research evidence,Related research in the future can be focused on new species、New Technology、New paradigm and other aspects,New technology and new paradigms can provide more refinement for research psychological theory、Accurate Conditions,The exploration of new species will provide a wider view of vision for revealing the mystery of psychological theoretical evolution。Especially today when the artificial intelligence industry is booming,High -precision computer technology and complex mathematical physical methods are important,But we want to use the machine to reproduce the superb and complex and varied intelligence,It is necessary to explore the origin and development mechanism of human intelligence from the root,Animal research may provide a new perspective for the development and innovation of artificial intelligence。As Professor Matsawa Toshiro, Kyoto University in Japan,If neuroscience、Physiology、Anatomy and molecular biology is committed to understanding the structure and function of the human brain now,Then the comparative psychological research of animals and humans is exploring the reason for the evolution of human brain into this now。

 (Author Unit: School of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University)

Editor in charge: Chen Jing
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