Becoming a social agent: Developmental foundations of an embodiedsocial psychology

摘要

In this paper, we argue that young infants serve as ideal models for disentangling the relative contributions of embodiedand symbolic processes to mature social cognition and behavior. Based on evidence suggesting that infants possess anascent ability to understand others' actions, and to interact and communicate with others in meaningful ways, we arguethat the embodiment processes underlying these skills in infancy may also account fora significant portion of adults' socialunderstanding and behavior. Based on evidence suggesting both continuity and change in social understanding andbehavior as children encounter a formal language system, and evidence suggesting that manipulating the mode ofprocessing influences social understanding, we argue that embodied and symbolic modes of understanding are potentiallydissociable and can yield different construals of the same social behavior. Finally, we suggest that the study of infancy canelucidate outstanding issues in the adult social psychology, and close by providing one illustration of the way in which itmight do so.