CogSci 2025

August 01, 2025

San Francisco, United States

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keywords:

social cognition

theory of mind

psychology

emotion

Humans’ capacity for Theory of Mind (ToM) allows us to reason about and infer others’ mental states, including their emotions. While ToM has been extensively studied in interpersonal contexts, how people attribute mental states–particularly emotions–to collective entities (e.g., corporations) remains underexplored. The current work examines whether and how people ascribe emotions to collectives using the appraisal theory framework. Participants were randomly assigned to scenarios designed to elicit a specific emotional inference about either an individual (e.g., a lawyer) or a collective (e.g., a law firm). We then collected and compared emotion attributions and appraisal judgments of the situations across both conditions. Our results suggest that people attribute emotions to individuals and collectives in remarkably similar ways, with subtle differences in event appraisals. The results pave the way for a deeper understanding of collective ToM, with implications for studying moral judgments and decision-making in societal contexts.

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