{"id":816,"date":"2010-08-21T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-08-21T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=816"},"modified":"2010-06-23T09:24:47","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T07:24:47","slug":"making-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=816","title":{"rendered":"Making minds"},"content":{"rendered":"
Making minds: <\/strong>The shaping of human minds through social context. Ed. by Petra Hauf<\/strong> and Friedrich F\u00f6rsterling<\/strong>. (Benjamins current topics 4.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. Pp. ix, 275. ISBN 9789027222343<\/a>. $143 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Omaima M. Ayoub<\/strong><\/a>, Richard J. Daley College<\/em><\/p>\n

The eighteen papers in this volume take an interdisciplinary approach to the question of to what extent the mind is socially constructed. More specifically, this volume focuses on how an individual\u2019s mental, psychological, and behavioral dispositions are shaped by the way he perceives himself understood and treated by others. Furthermore, the contributors, from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and ethology, contend that the social environment has a strong impact not only on mental contents such as beliefs, motives, and attitudes, but also on psychological and mental structures such as self-consciousness, traits, talents, and abilities.<\/p>\n

The opening chapter, \u2018Of minds and mirrors: An introduction to the social making of minds\u2019 by Wolfgang<\/strong> Prinz<\/strong>, Friedrich\u00a0F\u00f6rsterling, and\u00a0Petra\u00a0Hauf, outlines the principles that underlie the mechanisms involved in the social construction of the mind. Martin Kusch<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018How minds and selves are made: Some conceptual preliminaries\u2019 offers a conceptual analysis of these mechanisms. In \u2018Dynamics of social coordination\u2019, Robin\u00a0R.\u00a0Vallacher<\/strong>, Andrzej\u00a0Nowak<\/strong>, <\/strong>and\u00a0Michal\u00a0Zochowski<\/strong> describe social coordination between individuals in close relationships, and present a model that captures the emergence, maintenance, and disruption of this coordination. Mark\u00a0Snyder <\/strong>and Olivier\u00a0Klein<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018Construing and constructing others: On the reality and the generality of the behavioral confirmation scenario\u2019, focuses on the role of the behavioral confirmation phenomenon in shaping the social perceptions of perceivers, targets, and outside observers. Along the same lines, William B. Swann<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018The self and identity negotiation\u2019 examines the causes and consequences of self-verification (i.e. the tendency for targets to make perceivers verify their self-views). In \u2018Social reality makes the social mind: Self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotypes, bias, and accuracy\u2019, Lee\u00a0Jussim<\/strong><\/strong>, Kent\u00a0D.\u00a0Harber<\/strong><\/strong>, Jarret\u00a0T.\u00a0Crawford<\/strong><\/strong>, Thomas\u00a0R.\u00a0Cain<\/strong><\/strong>,<\/strong> and\u00a0Florette<\/strong> Cohen<\/strong> argue that social psychology\u2019s emphasis on the biased, erroneous, and inaccurate perception of social perceivers creates a deformed social reality.<\/p>\n

In \u2018How to do things with logical expressions: Creating collective value through co-ordinated reasoning\u2019, Denis<\/strong> Hilton<\/strong>, Ga\u00eblle<\/strong> Villejoubert<\/strong>,<\/strong> and\u00a0Jean-Fran\u00e7ois<\/strong> Bonnefon<\/strong> contend that logical expressions have performative functions that enable speakers to perform particular acts and state certain propositions. Sandra<\/strong> Graham<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018Attributions and peer harassment\u2019 uses attribution theory to examine how peer harassment influences the way victims think of themselves. In a similar vein, Kurt Hahlweg<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018The shaping of individuals\u2019 mental structures and dispositions by others: Findings from research on expressed emotion\u2019 outlines the history of expressed emotions in schizophrenic patients and presents evidence for the relationship between family expressed emotions and mood disorders in those patients. In \u2018Ostracism: The making of the ignored and excluded mind\u2019, Kipling\u00a0D. Williams <\/strong>and Jonathan\u00a0Gerber <\/strong>examine the consequences of ostracism (i.e. being ignored and excluded) on neurophysiological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral levels. In \u2018Self processes in interdependent relationships: Partner affirmation and the Michelangelo phenomenon\u2019, Caryl\u00a0E.\u00a0Rusbult<\/strong><\/strong>, Madoka<\/strong> Kumashiro<\/strong>, Shevaun\u00a0L.\u00a0Stocker<\/strong><\/strong>, Jeffrey\u00a0L.\u00a0Kirchner<\/strong><\/strong>, Eli\u00a0J.\u00a0Finkel<\/strong><\/strong>,<\/strong> and Michael\u00a0K.\u00a0Coolsen<\/strong><\/strong> review theoretical and empirical research conducted on the Michelangelo phenomenon, which refers to the manner in which close partners shape one another\u2019s dispositions, values, and behavioral tendencies.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Constructing perspectives in the social making of minds\u2019, <\/a>Jeremy\u00a0I. M.\u00a0Carpendale<\/strong>, Charlie<\/strong> Lewis<\/strong>, Ulrich<\/strong> M\u00fcller<\/strong>,\u00a0and\u00a0Timothy\u00a0P.\u00a0Racine<\/strong> focus on the development of joint attention in infants and its relation to language development, which may pave the way for social development. Lucie\u00a0H.<\/strong> Salwiczek<\/strong> and Wolfgang<\/strong> Wickler<\/strong>\u2019s <\/strong>\u2018The shaping of animals\u2019 minds\u2019 argues that animals\u2019 minds are shaped throughout several social processes. Similarly, Josep<\/strong> Call<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018Chimpanzees are sensitive to some of the psychological states of others\u2019 suggests that chimpanzees can interpret the perceptions and actions of human experimenters. In \u2018The understanding of own and others\u2019 actions during infancy: \u201cYou-like-me\u201d or \u201cme-like-you\u201d?\u2019, Petra\u00a0Hauf and Wolfgang\u00a0Prinz examine the bidirectional nature of social interaction during infancy. In \u2018Experiencing contingency and agency: First step toward self-understanding in making a mind?\u2019, Jacqueline<\/strong> Nadel<\/strong>, Ken<\/strong> Prepin<\/strong>,<\/strong> and\u00a0Mako<\/strong> Okanda<\/strong> examine the <\/strong><\/p>\n

development of action understanding in preverbal infants. Gy\u00f6rgy<\/strong> Gergely<\/strong> and Gergely Csibra<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018The social construction of the cultural mind: Imitative learning as a mechanism of human pedagogy\u2019 contends that the selective interpretive nature of early imitative learning can be seen as a result of the assumptions built into the infant\u2019s pedagogical stance, which leads to the efficient transmission of cultural knowledge. Finally, in \u2018File change semantics for preschoolers: Alternative naming and belief understanding\u2019, Josef<\/strong> Perner<\/strong> and\u00a0Johannes\u00a0L.<\/strong> Brandl<\/strong> develop a new theory of cognitive changes in four-year-old children, by examining the reasons alternative naming emerges at this age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making minds: The shaping of human minds through social context. Ed. by Petra Hauf and Friedrich F\u00f6rsterling. (Benjamins current topics 4.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. Pp. ix, 275. ISBN 9789027222343. $143 (Hb). Reviewed by Omaima M. Ayoub, Richard J. Daley College The eighteen papers in this volume take an interdisciplinary approach to the question of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}