Belief-desire theories are frequently criticized based on the fact that neither beliefs nor desires involve a practical commitment to performing an action, which is often illustrated in various counterexamples.
Folk psychology explains human behavior on the basis of mental states, including beliefs, desires, and intentions.
[14][15] Intentionality is the more general term: it refers to the power of minds to represent or to stand for things, properties, and states of affairs.
[5] For example, when considering whether to respond to an insult through retaliation, the agent may have both a desire to do so and a belief that they will end up doing this, based on how they acted in the past.
[2] This is relevant for cases where the agent fails to act according to the intended course of action, for example, due to having a weak will.
[2] For example, one may intend to follow the shortest route home but take a wrong turn and thereby fail to perform the corresponding action.
Raising one's hand may happen intentionally or unintentionally, for example, when a student wants to signal to the teacher that they have a question in contrast to an involuntary bodily reflex.
[5] A simple plan to buy batteries at the close-by electronics store, for example, involves many steps, like putting on shoes, opening one's door, closing and locking it, going to the traffic light, turning left, etc.
Central to this process is the agent's ability to monitor the progress in relation to the proximal intention and to adjust the current behavior accordingly.
[43] Various prominent examples, due to Sigmund Freud, involve slips of the tongue, like declaring a meeting to be closed when one intends to open it.
[36] Unconditional intentions are stronger in the sense that the agent is fully committed to the course of action without relying on the presence of a triggering condition.
This concerns, for example, bodily reflexes like sneezing or other uncontrolled processes like digestion, which happen without following a previously devised mental plan.
First, acquiring an understanding of intention is important for development in that it helps children conceptualize how people and animals differ from objects.
[59] Social, cognitive and developmental psychological research has focused on the question: How do young children develop the ability to understand other people's behaviors and intentions?
When outcomes are achieved without the action of the individual directed at the goal, intention is not attributed to the actor; rather, the event is considered an accident.
Liszkowski, Carpenter and colleagues (2004)[69] found that human children begin to point at around one year of age and do so with a multiple motives, including sharing attention and interest.
[69] Earlier pointing may be different in nature and is thought to develop from a learned association between reaching and adult responsiveness to the child's desire for a referent object.
These cues may offer information on another's emotional state,[74][75] focus of attention,[76] and potential intentions[77][78] (For a discussion see Mosconi, Mack, McCarthy, & Pelphrey, 2005[79]).
[61] Research in this area is focused on how humans develop the understanding that eye gaze indicates that the observer may be psychologically connected to the referent.
[59] An evolutionary perspective of this phenomenon is that humans survived on the basis of being able to predict the internal mental states and potential future actions of others.
This was demonstrated in a study by Heider and Simmel;[84] they had observers view videos of moving triangles, and found that participants tended to attribute intentions and even personality traits to the shapes based on their movements.
[84] Johansson[85] devised a way to study biological motion without interference from other characteristics of humans such as body shape, or emotional expression.
[86][87] Thus, research indicates that humans are hard-wired to notice biological motion, infer intention, and use previous mental representations to predict future actions of others.
[90] For most criminal offenses, to ensure a conviction, the prosecution must prove that there was intent (or another form of mens rea) in addition to showing that the accused physically committed the crime.
For example, if a female employee is accused of murdering her male boss, then her previous blog posts condemning the patriarchal society and idolizing women who killed men could be used as evidence of intent.
[104] Although human behavior is extremely complex and still remains unpredictable, psychologists are trying to understand the influential factors in the process of forming intentions and performing actions.
[107] The predictive validity of the theory of Reasoned Action has been examined in numerous studies that have previously served as literature for at least three quantitative reviews.
For example, ‘He writes/is writing/wrote/was writing/will write letters.’[113] People are more likely to interpret the event as ongoing, and likely to resume the action in the future when it has been described with the imperfective verb aspect.
[119][121] On this view, for example, terror bombing an ammunition factory in order to weaken the enemy's resolve by killing all the civilians working in it is impermissible.
But performing the same attack as a tactical bombing in order to reduce the enemy's ammunition supply is permissible, even if the same amount of civilian deaths were foreseen as a side effect.