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and-effect explanations of behavior that give a sense of predictability and control. A meteorologist may know that a hurricane may strike here or there depending on environmental conditions. Lacking such knowledge, a hurricane that strikes here rather than there may lead people to invoke a mindful agent—such as a God—to explain that action.

Projecting. If introspection makes your own mind visible, then you might assume that those who look similar to you on the outside might look similar to you on the inside as well. Indeed, animals that move at a humanlike speed (such as a horse) seem more mindful to people than do animals that move either much slower (such as a sloth) or much faster (such as a hummingbird).11 And an agent that look humanlike, such as a computerized avatar with human face, seems more mindful than avatars that do not look humanlike. Any parent knows how well toy makers love to capitalize on this tendency. But it is the converse of this effect that is even more interesting—other minds become less visible as the agent becomes less similar to the self. Others that differ from you in their interests, nationality, or social status are likely to be seen as less mindful—less thoughtful, less likely to experience complicated emotions, less able to experience pain or suffering—than those that are similar to you. It is little wonder, then, that the history of human conflict is filled with instances of people dehumanizing radically different others, treating them like mindless animals or objects.12

Why Minds Matter

It may not be obvious to you why it matters that your neighbor, every now and then, thinks that her computer has a mind of it’s own, that a mayor believes that God punished his city by sending a hurricane, or that you truly believe that your pet poodle is thoughtful and considerate. Some of these attributions of mind seem purely metaphorical and therefore unimportant, as ways of speaking rather than ways of believing, whereas others seem to represent genuine beliefs about the real presence or absence of another social mind. But metaphors have a way of influencing behavior in ways that are consistent with believing the metaphor to be literally true. People metaphorically refer to feeling dirty after behaving unethically, and yet washing one’s hands actually reduces the guilt that people report feeling from engaging in unethical actions.13 People are surely just speaking metaphorically when they refer to rejection as being given the cold shoulder, and yet research demonstrates that people do indeed report feeling that a room is colder after someone has just rejected them than after someone has just accepted them.14 And surely people are only speaking metaphorically when they refer to the stock market as anxious or jittery, and yet describing the market as mindful leads stock traders to believe that trends are likely to continue whereas describing the market as mindless leads traders to predict more random variability.15 Whether metaphorical or literal, seeing other agents as mindful matters because people tend to treat the agent as if it has a mind. That matters for at least three major reasons.

First, mindful agents have both intentions and the capacity for self-control. Mindful agents can therefore be held responsible for their actions. Possessing a guilty mind (mens rea) is necessary for being held criminally responsible for a crime in the US, a

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