“Intentional Causality”
Kahneman elaborates, “The psychologists Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel used a method similar to Michotte’s to demonstrate the perception of intentional causality. They made a film which lasts all of one minute and forty seconds, in which you see a large triangle, a small triangle, and a circle moving around a shape that looks like a schematic view of a house with an open door. Viewers see an aggressive large triangle bullying a smaller triangle, a terrified circle, the circle and the small triangle joining forces to defeat the bully; they also observe many interactions around the door and then an explosive finale.”
Emotions trigger perceptions of ‘intentional causality”. The perceptions of causality occur in the mind. In the case of this experiment, the mind considers the triangles agents of aggression and gives them personality traits of bullies. Although the film is about triangles, the viewers’ minds trigger causalities between the triangles and perceived scenes of bullying. Therefore, the viewers are predisposed to thinking about bullying.
The Soul
Kahneman writes, “Many people find it natural to describe their soul as the source and the cause of their actions. The psychologist Paul Bloom, writing in The Atlantic in 2005, presented the provocative claim that our inborn readiness to separate physical and intentional causality explains the near universality of religious beliefs. He observes that “we perceive the world of objects as essentially separate from the world of minds, making it possible for us to envision soulless bodies and bodiless souls.”
Beliefs about the soul depict the convergence of divergent religious beliefs across the globe. Assumptions about the soul imply that souls play a central part in the controlling of physical bodies. According to religions, souls are immortal and they leave the human body after death. The universal beliefs concerning the causality between the physical human body and the soul are attributed to evolution, resulting in the inherent incorporation of soul-related religious beliefs in System 1.
“Basic Assessment”
Kahneman expounds, “Alex Todorov, my colleague at Princeton, has explored the biological roots of rapid judgements of how safe it is to interact with a stranger. He showed that we are endowed with an ability to evaluate, in a single glance at a stranger’s face, two potentially crucial facts about that person: how dominant (and therefore potentially threatening) he is, and how trustworthy he is, whether his intentions are more likely to be more friendly or hostile.”
The face offers crucial tips that influence the ‘basic assessments’ that people make regarding strangers. Facial expressions, when scrutinized carefully, offer hints about the intentions of strangers. Furthermore, eyes are instrumental in the creation of first impressions. The assessment of others’ faces complements intuitions.
Face and Likeability
Kahneman reports, “Todorov showed his students pictures of men’s faces, sometimes for as little as one-tenth of a second, and asked them to rate the faces on various attributes, including likability and competence. Observers agreed quite well on those ratings... In about 70% of the races for senator, congressman, and governor, the election winner was the candidate whose face had earned a higher rating of competences.”
The faces used in the experiment comprised of politicians’ faces. The students were unaware of the political contexts of the photos, and the outcomes of the experiment demonstrate that Faces influence individuals’ likability. Political strategists would benefit from this finding; they would encourage their clients, politicians, to invest in impressive photos. Appealing photos would appeal to voters and thus increase their chances of winning.
