Misstepping Into Others’ Shoes

The ability to intuit another person’s thoughts, feelings, and inner mental states is surely among the most impressive of human mental faculties. Adopting another’s perspective requires the ability to represent the self as distinct from others, the development of a theory of mind to realize that others have mental states in the first place (see also Saxe, Chapter 17, this volume) and the explicit recognition that others’ mental states and perceptions could differ from one’s own. Humans appear to be born with absolutely none of these capacities but instead develop them during the first few years of life (Callaghan et al., 2005; Flavell, 1999; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1994). Developing these perspective-taking abilities appears critical for many of the good things in social life, from empathy, to cooperation, to possible acts of altruism. Not all humans develop these skills to equivalent degrees, and those who do not develop these skills to any degree are among the most puzzling (and occasionally horrifying) members of society as they look perfectly human but act completely unhuman. Of course, humans are not alone in their capacity for self-awareness, their considerations of others’ mental states, or perhaps even their awareness of differing perspectives and resulting mental states, but comparing the abilities of even the closest nonhuman relative is a bit like comparing sandcastles to skyscrapers (Hare, 2007). But, as anyone who has recently purchased a cell phone, computer, or almost any other technological gadget knows all too well, owning impressive technology and using it correctly are two entirely different things. One of us, for instance, owns a cellular telephone that is also able to take pictures, play music, and do something called “texting,” but so far is only able to use it to call other telephones. The same gap also holds for mental technologies, for which the possibility of performing some impressive mental operation need not equate with one’s actual ability to perform this operation. From memory, to altruism, to self-control, the gap between what is possible with one’s psychological abilities and what is probable can appear somewhat “canyonesque.” The same, we argue, is also true of perspective taking. Humans possess the mental capability necessary to adopt contents