Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Influential theories in social psychology, philosophy, andlinguistics assume that ordinary people judge many mentalstates as outside voluntary control, yet few studies have directlyinvestigated these claims. We report four studies suggestingthat, contrary to several prominent models, ordinary peopleattribute at least moderate intentional control to others over awide variety of mental states. Furthermore, it appears thatperceived control may vary systematically according to mentalstate type (e.g. emotions vs. desires vs. beliefs). These resultspoint to several important directions for future research inbehavior explanation and moral judgment.