Behavioural Manifestations and Relational Correlates of Individual Differences in Theory of Mind
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Although it is impossible to know the contents of others’ minds with absolute certainty, we can (and do) make probabilistic guesses about what others are thinking or feeling. When these judgments are made based on observable information, we refer to this skill as “theory of mind decoding.” There are individual differences in how accurately adults make theory of mind decoding judgments, and how motivated they are to use this skill in daily life. However, surprisingly little is known social correlates of these individual differences. The current dissertation examined whether theory-of-mind decoding skill, motivation to use this skill, and their interaction predicted three categories of social behaviours: conversational skills, cognitive sensitivity, and mental state language. Further, I explored whether these social behaviours predicted relational success, strangers’ ratings of participant likeability after an initial encounter. Participants were 334 undergraduate students who participated in a cooperative building task with a same-gender stranger. Social behaviours were coded based on video recordings of the building task. Theory-of-mind skill was assessed using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task, and motivation to use theory of mind was assessed using the self-reported Mind-Reading Motivation scale. Results suggested that theory-of-mind skill, motivation to use this skill, and their interaction did not directly predict partner ratings of participant likeability. However, individual differences in theory of mind did predict partner ratings of participant likeability indirectly through cognitive sensitivity. Further, theory-of-mind skill and motivation to use this skill manifested in different aspects of conversational skills and mental state language, although these behaviours were not significant predictors of partner ratings of participant likeability. Taken together, the results of this study support the general assertion that individual differences in theory of mind are important for social interactions, even among healthy adults, and highlights the basic social cognitive processes that facilitate successful interpersonal interactions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".