Possible Worlds, Possible Minds

Abstract

Across the world and across history, adults have developed widely divergent beliefs about people and their minds and actions, capacities and limits. Yet, these spring from, and depart from, early childhood theories, which are remarkably similar worldwide. This chapter considers what some of these divergent beliefs about people are like and how they arise from earlier understandings. How? Universal processes and beginnings allow and propel the development of vastly different belief systems, and theory of mind plays a particularly powerful role in these processes and outcomes. Human children worldwide share a framework theory of mind even when adults’ conceptions of people are less similar worldwide than children’s. Cultures have centuries in which to develop unique understandings of persons, selves, and societies. At the same time, all of them are grounded in the same initial framework of young children.