Bridging People and Perspectives : General and Language-Specific Social Network Structure Predict Mentalizing Across Diverse Sociolinguistic Contexts
(2022) In Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 76(4). p.235-250- Abstract
Mentalizing, or reasoning about others’ mental states, is a dynamic social cognitive process that aids in communication and navigating complex social interactions. We examined whether exposure to diverse perspectives, afforded by occupying influential social network positions, predicted bilingual adults’ performances on a behavioral mentalizing rating task in regions of high and low linguistic diversity. We calculated the degree to which respondents’ social network position generally bridged unconnected others (i.e., general betweenness) and specifically bridged language communities (i.e., language betweenness). General betweenness predicted mentalizing performance regardless of region, whereas language betweenness only predicted... (More)
Mentalizing, or reasoning about others’ mental states, is a dynamic social cognitive process that aids in communication and navigating complex social interactions. We examined whether exposure to diverse perspectives, afforded by occupying influential social network positions, predicted bilingual adults’ performances on a behavioral mentalizing rating task in regions of high and low linguistic diversity. We calculated the degree to which respondents’ social network position generally bridged unconnected others (i.e., general betweenness) and specifically bridged language communities (i.e., language betweenness). General betweenness predicted mentalizing performance regardless of region, whereas language betweenness only predicted mentalizing in a high linguistic diversity region, where bilingualism is ubiquitous and mentalizing to resolve perspective differences on the basis of language may be an adaptive cognitive strategy. These results indicate that human cognition is sensitive to social context and adaptive to the sociolinguistic demands of the broader environment.
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- author
- Tiv, Mehrgol ; Kutlu, Ethan ; O’Regan, Elisabeth LU and Titone, Debra
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Language diversity, Social cognition, Social network analysis, Socialecological behavior, Sociolinguistic contexts
- in
- Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology
- volume
- 76
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 16 pages
- publisher
- Canadian Psychological Association
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:35191715
- scopus:85125953024
- ISSN
- 1196-1961
- DOI
- 10.1037/cep0000273
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- f9a916a0-a1f8-4ca7-a95d-67aa1b2732ea
- date added to LUP
- 2022-04-21 13:50:38
- date last changed
- 2025-03-13 03:38:06
@article{f9a916a0-a1f8-4ca7-a95d-67aa1b2732ea,
abstract = {{<p>Mentalizing, or reasoning about others’ mental states, is a dynamic social cognitive process that aids in communication and navigating complex social interactions. We examined whether exposure to diverse perspectives, afforded by occupying influential social network positions, predicted bilingual adults’ performances on a behavioral mentalizing rating task in regions of high and low linguistic diversity. We calculated the degree to which respondents’ social network position generally bridged unconnected others (i.e., general betweenness) and specifically bridged language communities (i.e., language betweenness). General betweenness predicted mentalizing performance regardless of region, whereas language betweenness only predicted mentalizing in a high linguistic diversity region, where bilingualism is ubiquitous and mentalizing to resolve perspective differences on the basis of language may be an adaptive cognitive strategy. These results indicate that human cognition is sensitive to social context and adaptive to the sociolinguistic demands of the broader environment.</p>}},
author = {{Tiv, Mehrgol and Kutlu, Ethan and O’Regan, Elisabeth and Titone, Debra}},
issn = {{1196-1961}},
keywords = {{Language diversity; Social cognition; Social network analysis; Socialecological behavior; Sociolinguistic contexts}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{4}},
pages = {{235--250}},
publisher = {{Canadian Psychological Association}},
series = {{Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology}},
title = {{Bridging People and Perspectives : General and Language-Specific Social Network Structure Predict Mentalizing Across Diverse Sociolinguistic Contexts}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000273}},
doi = {{10.1037/cep0000273}},
volume = {{76}},
year = {{2022}},
}