Reading Minds

Henry Wellman graduated with a BA from Pomona College in 1970 and with a PhD from the Institute of Child Psychology at the University of Minnesota in 1975. He has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan for just over 40 years. His book Making Minds (OUP 2014) won book awards from the American Psychological Association and the Cognitive Development Society. He is recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, University of Michigan 2009; the G. Stanley Hall Award (for distinguished career contributions to Developmental Psychology) from the American Psychological Association, 2012; and a MERIT award from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.

Preface

Chapter 1: Reading Minds 101
How We Begin
Reading the Minds of Others
Mistakes Are Made
Life Without Reading Minds: Autism and Mind Blindness
Going Forward

Chapter 2: Mindreading, Gossip, and Liars
Gossip: Can You Blame Your Primate DNA?
Reading Minds 102
Not Just for Experts: Everyday Psychology
Lies, Damned Lies, and Deceptions
How to Detect Liars
Our Social Brain

Chapter 3: Friends, Secrets, and Lies
Children Master False Beliefs
Back to Africa
Lies and Deception
Hiding and Secrets
Persuasion
Ruby Bridges and Friendlessness

Chapter 4: Imagination and Reality
Real or Imagined: Can Children Tell?
Jean Piaget
Imaginary Companions
Mixing Mind and Reality--We All Do It
In Sum

Chapter 5: Putting the Theory in Theory of Mind
Temple Grandin: Thinking in Pictures
Everyday Theories
Building Theories
Theory? Or Not?

Chapter 6: Block by Block
Building Theory of Mind
How Deafness Influences Theory of Mind
Stepping Up
Deaf with Deaf Parents
Watching a Sign Language Arise
Enhancing Theory of Mind
Can Sequences Differ?
Theories Beget Theories
Building with Blocks


Chapter 7: The Baby Boom: Where Reading Minds Begins
Infants' Social Understanding
How It's Done
Preferences
How Infants Understand People
Further Questions
Primal Egocentrism
False Beliefs?
Human Learning: The Real Baby Boom

Chapter 8: Superpowers, God, Omniscience, and Afterlife
Superheroes
How Children Link to God
Omniscience?
Does Religion Help?
Adult, Too
The Living Dead
Afterlife
Is Your Mind Invisible? Is Your Brain?
The Invisible Brain
The Soul Has It
Transcending the Ordinary


Chapter 9: Possible Worlds, Possible Minds
When People Don't Care
When God Talks Back
Mind Overcomes Reality
People Everywhere are Different, People Everywhere are Just the Same
Teaching and Time
Rubber Band Development
Contradictions and Progress

Chapter 10: Chimps, Dogs and Us: The Evolution of Reading Minds
How Human Are They?
Rich or Lean?
The Lean
Getting Richer
Chimp Limitations
Human versus Chimp: Sharing, Helping, and Acquiring
Sharing and Cooperation
Helpful Disclosures
Helpful Acts
My Dog Can Read My Mind
Temperamental Humans
Social Intelligence

Chapter 11: The Social Brain
Cells that Read Minds
How It Works
Yawning Infects Us
TOM: The Theory of Mind Network
Childish Brains
Plastic Brains

Chapter 12: Hi, Robot
The Uncanny Valley
Creepiness Creeps In
Learning from Robots
Trustworthy Testimony
Developing Ideas about Robots
Younger Children Learn from Robots
Younger versus Older Children and Robots
Feelings toward Robots
Morality for Robots?
Into the Future

Chapter 13: Theory of Mind At Work
At Work in the Law
Mind Bubbles Up
Mysteries of Mind
Theory of Mind at Work for Childish Adults
Theory of Mind Works Against Us
Forecasting Feelings
Surprise: It's Not the Thought that Counts
Easy Knowledge Is Bad for You
How to Get Smarter
Always Working

Chapter 14: Stories, Theories, Minds
The Stories We Live By
Self-Deceptions and Errors
Understanding and Misunderstanding Emotions
It's Magic
We Don't Know What We Don't Know
Reading Minds