Theory: The Secret Weapon
Let’s gossip! About whom? Elizabeth Bennet from “Pride and Prejudice”. Let’s think about how she builds her opinion of Mr. Darcy. Based on facts? Not always. She does it mainly based on what she’s heard, seen from a distance, and interpreted herself. As readers, we are in a privileged position because we know her knowledge is incomplete and her beliefs are often “false” – in fact Miss Bennet has no clue about Darcy’s actual intentions. She mostly invents them in her own head. Anyone who has read (or watched) “Pride and Prejudice” has surely noticed this.
Funnily enough, whenever you try to find a literary equivalent for a psychological theory, it turns out the author of “Pride and Prejudice” wrote about it. The conclusion? Perhaps it should be mandatory reading for psychology students and anyone interested in the human mind?
And just like that, while gossiping, you didn’t even realize you’ve just encountered a rather fascinating psychological concept. It seems deceptively simple, but it is of colossal importance in building relationships – today, we’re talking about Theory of Mind (ToM). The Bennet-Darcy relationship is a textbook, classic illustration of it. Ready? This is going to be interesting!
Theory of Mind, in the simplest terms, is the cognitive ability that allows us to understand that other people have their own mental states: their own thoughts, desires, beliefs, and emotions. And their mental states can be completely different from ours. Seems obvious? Well, sort of… And it’s not just a human thing – studies have shown that chimpanzees have something similar.
If you’re wondering what this cognitive ability actually gives us, the shortest answer is – thanks to it, we interpret others’ behaviour and can predict their future actions. This means we act depending on the situation, but sometimes also according to others’ expectations. We understand social norms. But also – and this is interesting – we can manipulate others and understand the punchlines in jokes someone tells us.
In detail, Theory of Mind means that:
- We have an understanding of distinctness – the awareness that what I know and feel is not automatically known to others (quick reality check: how many times in the last three days did we think our partner should know what we’re thinking?). Conversely, someone else can have entirely different beliefs than I do.
- We have an awareness of false beliefs – noticing that someone can believe something that isn’t true (from simple things like being convinced you locked the door when you didn’t, to much more complex issues).
- We know that ToM is the foundation of social relations – without it, there is no empathy, cooperation or effective communication. The awareness that no one can read our minds or guess our intentions forces us to learn how to communicate and cooperate effectively, which is the bedrock of social competence.
- We should also be aware that most children acquire these basic ToM skills around age 4 or 5, starting from understanding simple desires to grasping more complex emotions. Difficulties in this area are often observed in people on the autism spectrum, but this isn’t the place to dive deep into that topic.
Now, let’s slowly head back to Jane Austen, but with a quick stop to discuss some famous research (by H. Wimmer and J. Perner). Theory of Mind studies are often conducted using story-based pictures. The researchers use images showing Sally and Anne in a room. Sally hides a marble in her basket and leaves; meanwhile, Anne moves the marble to her own box. The question asked to children is: “Where will Sally look for her marble?” A typically developing four-year-old will point to the correct answer without any trouble. This is First-order Attribution, which can be summed up as: “She thinks that…” (The children answer that Sally thinks the marble is in the basket).
There is also Second-order Attribution, a structure that adds another “level”: “She thinks that he thinks that…” or “She does something because she thinks that he thinks that…” This is where we enter the world of complex intentions and lies.
Returning for good to “Pride and Prejudice” – I’ll let you in on a secret: many researchers working at the intersection of literature, cognitive science, and psychology consider this novel a “gym for the mind.” It requires us to constantly track what one character thinks about the intentions of another – meaning we are perpetually rotating between First-order and, even more often, Second-order Attributions.
On top of that, we are constantly judging whether a character has actual knowledge or just a belief. We analyze thought chains (it’s quite fun!) – at the first level, we wonder what Elizabeth thinks of Darcy; then, what Darcy thinks Elizabeth thinks of him, of his letter, or his words. Reading the novel and following these successive attributions is the best possible training for your Theory of Mind.
The whole story relies on nuances, half-words, glances, and letters where words and gestures have second and third meanings. Once you understand what to look for in “Pride and Prejudice”, you suddenly start catching all the attribution errors, misread irony, falsely understood intentions or over-interpreted glances. You see how this leads to the conflicts that drive the plot forward.
Intrigued? Then pick up “Pride and Prejudice” – even if it’s for the eighteenth time – and read it like a detective on the trail of Theory of Mind. I guarantee you’ll see much more, and not a single spoken sentence will feel “innocent” anymore.
And if you’d like to “train” your ability to spot Theory of Mind elements through literature, you can also reach for:
- “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon – the narrator is a boy with traits of the autism spectrum who struggles with intuitive Theory of Mind. This forces us, the readers, to fill in the mental states of other characters on our own.
- “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf – a slightly more challenging, “heavier” read, but brilliant from a ToM perspective. The author uses the stream of consciousness technique, showing how different people’s thoughts intertwine and how they interpret the same event differently – essentially making vastly different attributions.
- “Atonement” by Ian McEwan – one of the best novels for analysing ToM. The entire plot is built on an attribution error made by the 13-year-old protagonist, who witnesses a scene and interprets it through her own limited understanding of the world. From there, we can only watch as the misattribution of someone’s intentions leads to tragic consequences.
- “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn – this one might surprise you in this list, but thrillers are often a genius way to understand how ToM works. Here, the characters engage in a “ToM war.” The narrative shows how a husband and wife try to predict each other’s moves and intentions while manipulating what their partner – and the public – thinks. It’s fascinating to see how false beliefs can be “planted” in the minds of others.
- “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus – a personal favourite of mine that also features ToM elements. The protagonist is a brilliant chemist with a mind so logical that she applies a scientific approach even to everyday life. She lacks “intuitive ToM,” which leads to both humorous and bitter clashes with life in the 1950s.
Is this the end of our journey with Theory of Mind? Not at all! We’ve covered the basics, but coming up next is a post on how Theory of Mind serves leaders and managers in organizations – a look at ToM from a purely “practical” perspective.
And if you’re intrigued by the idea of reading “Pride and Prejudice” as a ToM detective but aren’t sure how to start, I promise a step-by-step guide to that kind of encounter with Jane Austen’s story.
If you’d like to broaden your knowledge further, you can search for and read about the following topics:
- false belief test
- intentionality
- empathy vs. Theory of Mind
- mentalization
- attribution and Theory of Mind
- deception and manipulation in Theory of Mind
If you want to know more:
Aga J. Mackiewicz
for Intensive Chapters
A human, not artificial intelligence, is always responsible for the substantive content and final form of all texts on this website. No text is the result of any advertising partnership. All content represents our own, sometimes subjective, opinions, and no payment has ever influenced them. Photos used in the posts are our own, while graphics are created with the help of AI tools.