The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology
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CommonsensePsychology_Final.pdf
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3.88 MB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Gweon, Hyowon
Jara-Ettinger, Julian
Schulz, Laura E
Tenenbaum, Joshua B
Date Issued
July 2016
Journal
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Jara-Ettinger, Julian et al. “The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 20, 8 (August 2016): 589–604 © 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We propose that human social cognition is structured around a basic understanding of ourselves and others as intuitive utility maximizers: from a young age, humans implicitly assume that agents choose goals and actions to maximize the rewards they expect to obtain relative to the costs they expect to incur. This ‘naïve utility calculus’ allows both children and adults observe the behavior of others and infer their beliefs and desires, their longer-term knowledge and preferences, and even their character: who is knowledgeable or competent, who is praiseworthy or blameworthy, who is friendly, indifferent, or an enemy. We review studies providing support for the naïve utility calculus, and we show how it captures much of the rich social reasoning humans engage in from infancy.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.05.011
