Abstract
Theorists of oppression commonly accept that unfair social power disparities result in a variety of harms. In particular, oppression is characterized by a loss of open-mindedness in the oppressors, and negative internalization in the oppressed. That is, while oppressors are often unable or unwilling to consider the points of view of the oppressed, the oppressed often come to internalize conditions of oppression by experiencing them as indicative of their own alleged shortcomings. Nevertheless, the psychological mechanisms behind these phenomena have remained underexplored. This is unfortunate, since understanding the psychological processes behind these phenomena could help us understand how they could be reversed. In this work, I aim to fill this lacuna by extending debates on mechanisms of mindreading (simulation-based or theorizing-based mechanisms responsible for interpreting and manipulating one’s and others’ mental states via attribution of propositional attitudes) to show how close-mindedness and negative internalization come about. I synthesize empirical findings to show that while theorizing fosters emotional insulation by “reframing” affective cues from a third-person point of view, simulation fosters feelings of emotional vulnerability and psychological continuity. As a result, while theorizing allows oppressors to take a somewhat detached attitude during self and other interpretation, involuntary simulation fosters negative internalization on the part of the oppressed.
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Notes
For example, people who experienced sexual intimidation in the workplace when concepts like “sexual harassment” were still unavailable had trouble interpreting and justifying their experiences (Fricker, 2007, p. 150).
Roughly, while theory theory (henceforth TT) explains propositional attitude attributions in terms of theoretical reasoning, simulation theory (henceforth ST) appeals to tacit perspective-taking.
While the line between epistemic and agential capacities is quite thin, there are several ways to glom onto this distinction. First, while epistemologists seek knowledge, agents seek “self-direction” (i.e., organizing one’s life, regulating one’s emotional reactions, and so on). Second, by focusing on the interpersonal dynamics of oppression, we are moving away from precluding agential responsibility by dubbing the phenomena as a mere result of “the times” (Medina, 2017, p. 43). Thirdly, while it is undeniable that deficient interpretive resources contribute to this emotional inflexibility, it is also the case that he is failing as an agent in not even “trying as hard as one can” to get onto what it’s like to experience the world from a contrasting point of view (Medina, 2017, p.43).
Finally, engaging in empathetic stinginess is not merely a failure in gaining information, but a failure in regulating one’s emotional reactions and exercising the “wrong kind” of self-control. Similarly, while an anorexic person might have the wrong information about an ideal bodily shape, her main failure is agential in kind (i.e., exercising the “wrong kind” of self-control in not allowing herself to feel compassion for her own pain). Notably, the main argument of this paper is unaffected by the success of this distinction. We are trying to understand how certain harms come about and how they are realized in our psychology. The question of whether these harms are more epistemic than agential could potentially be set aside.
The notion of engaging in “empathetic stinginess” bears some similarity to Peter Strawson’s notion of taking on an “objective attitude” towards others (Strawson, 1962). In his work, Strawson hypothesizes that in taking an objective attitude, one avoids emotionally engaging with the target by theorizing about the target’s mental states from a third-person point of view. While Strawson argues that this maneuver is often motivated by fatigue, I hypothesize that its use extends to perpetuating close-mindedness.
E.g., Hirsch and Spitzer, 2009.
Notably, some theory-theorists have resisted this line by arguing that concepts still play a role in “direct” perception. Just like medical concepts allow an expert to “see” the tumor on a scan, so do folk psychological concepts allow the agent to “see” the other’s intentions (e.g., Carruthers, 2015).
Appealing to cooperative environments in our evolutionary history often makes use of the social exchange hypothesis (Cosmides & Tooby, 1994). According to social exchange hypothesis, cognitive mechanisms evolved in the context of cooperation. In this context, reciprocity could only be rewarded if humans evolved cognitive mechanisms for cheater detection (i.e., detection of parties who enjoy group benefits without contributing). According to the mindshaping account, high-level mindshaping helps cooperative parties track justifications for aberrant behavior like cheating.
The authors confirmed that theory of mind regions are responsible for this regulation by performing a PPI analysis. PPI analysis identifies brain regions where activity covaries with that of a seed region differentially across conditions. Activity in the bilateral amygdalae while processing Emotional Pain (versus Physical Pain) vignettes covaried positively with regions of the ToM network (bilateral TPJ, bilateral anterior STS and precuneus). Each of ToM brain regions (bilateral TPJ, precuneus and bilateral anterior STS) that were positively coupled with the amygdala during processing of stimuli overlapped with the brain regions identified by the Emotional Pain versus Physical Pain contrast (ibid, p.13).
Subjective social status (SSS) is often defined as one’s belief about one’s location in a status order” (e.g., Singh-Manoux et al., 2005). Of course, oppression is not subjective, but detailing these studies at least sheds some light on the hierarchical nature of APA.
Access is said to be “direct” if it allows us knowledge of our own mental states that is itself not based on knowledge of other things in the world (Schwitzgebel, 2010). Roughly, introspection is typically defined as a mental process that allows us direct access to our currently ongoing, or very recently past, mental states or processes. Notably, the existence of these self-regulative differences does not indicate the existence of direct introspective access. That is, simply because either simulation or theorizing could be used in self-directed attribution of propositional attitudes, it does not rule out the existence of a third self-directed method like direct introspection.
In this example, you might already have an inkling that you like gymnastics, but you might also need a minute to figure out whether it’s really important to you. So, in order to do so, you might temporarily abstract away from your inkling and project yourself to a scenario where you’ve forgotten to watch an important tournament.
Notably, the ability to “step back” from your experience does not have to proceed consciously. While many theorists believed that “reinterpretation” techniques like cognitive reappraisal proceed at a conscious level, (e.g., Zawidzki, 2019), some theorists accept that cognitive reappraisal could happen at a non-conscious level (e.g., Jiajin et al., 2015). In my view, the main phenomenological difference in the emotion regulatory processes of TT and ST concern the role of autonoetic consciousness. While the latter processes are rich in autonoetic consciousness or the experience of “here and now”, the former are not. I believe that TT users can avoid autonoetic consciousness whether they perform the reappraisal consciously or not. They can avoid undergoing the experience since they don’t have to “rent out” their mind to arrive at the attribution.
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Deep thanks to those who provided invaluable feedback on this work, including Tadeusz Zawidzki, Anonymous Reviewer, Elizabeth Schechter, John Doris, Allan Hazlett, Heather Stewart, and many others.
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Doulatova, M. Mindreading, emotion-regulation, and oppression. Synthese 200, 313 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03805-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03805-9