Publisher's Synopsis
Much of our social interaction involves inferences about the intentions, desires, and motivations that drive other's behavior. As Dennett (1987) has argued, when we attempt to explain other people's behavior it is done so in terms of assuming they have an underlying mental state that is the cause of their selected behavior. He called this the "Intentional Stance", which is based on attributing intentional states (desires, beliefs, and goals) as the cause of behavior. This stance allows us to make rational assumptions of why someone is behaving in a particular manner based on observed behavior and the surrounding context. That is to say, we may assume that someone will behave in the most rational manner possible to obtain his or her desired goal. For example, when we observe someone pick an apple from a tree, we might infer that they are hungry and they would like to eat the apple. If we see someone turn around and wave, we may assume that they see someone they know and that they would like to communicate with them. Imputing internal mental states not only helps us explain why people act as they do, but also helps us predict what they may do in the future (Dennett, 1987). While these kinds of inferences appear to be pervasive and obligatory, they are, nonetheless, inferences.
