How Psychology Has Changed Human Behavior - 1724 Words

Drawing on examples from across the module, evaluate the extent to which psychology has explained how people understand each other. People understand each other using cognitive skills, an example of this is mindreading. Mindreading abilities also referred to as the theory of mind (ToM) is the aptitude to comprehend that other people have mental states, such as understanding that other people have feelings, desires, motives, beliefs and intentions (Hewson, 2015a). This is generally an essential, undemanding skill for social interaction. Thereby, this essay will evaluate how psychology has helped to explain how people understand each other by firstly, explaining how an aspect of mindreading such as false belief has been studied using the†¦show more content†¦An aspect of Theory of mind (ToM) is false belief. False belief is the understanding that other people will have different beliefs to one’s own. Studies have shown that false belief develops throughout childhood. One of the most influential studies into discovering how false belief progresses is the Sally-Anne task. Briefly, the experimenter sho ws a child two puppets, Sally and Anne. Sally places a marble into a basket and leaves the room. Anne takes the marble and places it into a box. The child would be asked ‘Where will Sally look for her marble?’ If the child understands false belief they will answer, ‘where she left it in the basket’ showing understanding of another’s (Sally) false belief. This simple but effective task allows the researcher to get an appreciation of how individual’s false belief develops. Children tend to give the correct answer at approximately four to five years of age (Hewson, 2015b). This has led psychologist to examine further to find out why children under the age of four or five fails. Further research has compared the results of the false belief task with executive functioning skills. Executive functioning is the capability to allow people to manage their thoughts and actions. One such test that psychologists have used to measure executive functioning i s the bear-dragon task (Carlson and Moses, 2001, cited in Hewson, 2015). Using two puppets the child has to ignore one and copy the instructions (for example, pat your head) of the