Shared intentionality

TLDR

The study argues that shared intentionality is crucial for children’s early cognitive development. The authors examine four social‑cognitive skills, contrasting individualistic versions seen in chimpanzees with shared‑intentionality versions observed in 1‑ to 2‑year‑old humans. They find that shared intentionality transforms gaze following into joint attention, social manipulation into cooperative communication, group activity into collaboration, and social learning into instructed learning, thereby bridging biological and cultural theories of development.

Abstract

We argue for the importance of processes of shared intentionality in children's early cognitive development. We look briefly at four important social-cognitive skills and how they are transformed by shared intentionality. In each case, we look first at a kind of individualistic version of the skill -- as exemplified most clearly in the behavior of chimpanzees -- and then at a version based on shared intentionality -- as exemplified most clearly in the behavior of human 1- and 2-year-olds. We thus see the following transformations: gaze following into joint attention, social manipulation into cooperative communication, group activity into collaboration, and social learning into instructed learning. We conclude by highlighting the role that shared intentionality may play in integrating more biologically based and more culturally based theories of human development.