Ordinary people readily attribute mental states to groups despite long-standing scholarly rejection

Evidence

The notion that a group may have a mental state has long been rejected in social psychology as a nonscientific fallacy (Allport, 1924). Indeed, researchers would typically face difficulty in providing an operational definition of group mind. However, the findings by Teramae and Karasawa (2008) demonstrate that behavior explanations constructed by ordinary people can easily presuppose intentions associated with beliefs and desires even in a group, as long as the group is perceived to possess a mind-like function. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 154 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Confidence in ordinary people’s capacity tended to counteract nativism before 1910 — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 682; Ordinary people readily attribute mental states to groups perceived as mind-like — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 154; Ordinary people readily attribute intentions and desires to groups — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 154 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Ordinary people readily attribute mental states to groups perceived as mind-like #expands (0.92) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 154
• Crowd phenomena reduce to regressions in individual psyches, not group minds #complicates (0.75)