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Mindreading and Social Status
- Author(s):
- Lisa Zunshine (see profile)
- Date:
- 2020
- Group(s):
- GS Prose Fiction, LLC East Asian, TC Cognitive and Affect Studies, TM Literary and Cultural Theory, TM Literary Criticism
- Subject(s):
- Social classes, Race, Literature, Socialist realism, Cognitive science
- Item Type:
- Book chapter
- Tag(s):
- Austen, Measure for Measure, Dream of the Red Chamber, sociocognitive complexity, Cognitive science, Class, Gender
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/5jr1-2e25
- Abstract:
- Would you like to get better at mindreading (i.e., at inferring people’s beliefs, desires, and intentions, based on their behavior)? As it turns out, all you would have to do is lower your relative social status. Studies have shown that people in weaker social positions engage in more active and perceptive mindreading than do people in stronger social positions. (In fact, those in superior social position may assert their status by refusing to read mental states of others.) This essay shows that writers can intuitively manipulate their characters’ sociocognitive complexity, by either following or subverting these real-life dynamics, often figured along the lines of class, race, and gender.
- Notes:
- This essay appeared in the volume _Further Reading_ (Oxford UP, 2020), edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. More information at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/further-reading-9780198809791?cc=gb&lang=en&.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Book chapter
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 11 months ago
- License:
- Attribution
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