In phenomenology, philosophers such as Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein examined intersubjectivity in relation to empathy and experience, while in psychology it is used to analyze how individuals attribute mental states to others and coordinate behavior.
Intersubjectivity is a term coined by social scientists beginning around 1970[citation needed] to refer to a variety of types of human interaction.
"[5]: 19 Psychoanalyst Molly Macdonald argued in 2011 that a "potential point of origin" for the term was in Jean Hyppolite's use of l'inter-subjectivité in an essay from 1955 on "The Human Situation in the Hegelian Phenomenology".
Thought community examples include churches, professions, scientific beliefs, generations, nations, and political movements.
Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, recognized the importance of intersubjectivity, and wrote extensively on the topic.
Shannon Spaulding, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oklahoma State University, wrote: Theory theorists argue that we explain and predict behaviour by employing folk psychological theories about how mental states inform behaviour.
And from these inferences, plus the psychological principles in the theory connecting mental states to behavior, we predict the target's behaviour (Carruthers and Smith 1996; Davies and Stone 1995a; Gopnik and Wellman 1992; Nichols and Stich 2003).
[10]Simulation theorists, on the other hand, claim that we explain and predict others' behaviour by using our own minds as a model and "putting ourselves in another's shoes"—that is, by imagining what our mental states would be and how we would behave if we were in the other's situation.
Gallagher writes that an "... important shift is taking place in social cognition research, away from a focus on the individual mind and toward ... participatory aspects of social understanding...." Interaction theory is put forward to "galvanize" the interactive turn in explanations of intersubjectivity.
Additionally, the most socially productive relationship between children and adults is bidirectional, where both parties actively define a shared culture.
[18] The bidirectional aspect lets the active parties organize the relationship how they see fit—what they see as important receives the most focus.
Having grown up within this context may have led to members of this community to have what is described by some as a "blending of agendas",[19] or by others as a "dovetailing of motives".
Whether persons are in each other's presence or merely within the same community this blending of agendas or dovetailing of motives enables intersubjectivity to occur within these shared endeavors.
The learning process was facilitated by watching adults and by being allowed to play and experiment using tools to create their own weaving techniques.