The Folk Concept of Intentionality

Bertram F. Malle, Joshua Knobe
1997 Journal of Experimental Social Psychology  
When perceiving, explaining, or criticizing human behavior, people distinguish between intentional and unintentional actions. To do so, they rely on a shared folk concept of intentionality. In contrast to past speculative models, this article provides an empirically based model of this concept. Study 1 demonstrates that people agree substantially in their judgments of intentionality, suggesting a shared underlying concept. Study 2 reveals that when asked to define directly the term intentional,
more » ... people mention four components of intentionality: desire, belief, intention, and awareness. Study 3 confirms the importance of a fifth component, namely skill. In light of these findings, the authors propose a model of the folk concept of intentionality and provide a further test in Study 4. The discussion compares the proposed model to past ones and examines its implications for social perception, attribution, and cognitive development. r 1997 Academic Press
doi:10.1006/jesp.1996.1314 fatcat:262pm4wnjzbzhajg6riujpkgri