Introduction

This model paper focuses on life and situation prediction as key component of psychology. Prediction was chosen because it is a dominant concept under chapter one of Mastering the World of Psychology. Prediction holds a unique relationship with the entire spectrum of psychology. According to Wood, Wood & Boyd (2010), psychology is simply the scientific study of both mental and behavior processes. An argument put forward stresses that the behavior of other agents cannot be efficiently described in present debates as a dichotomy between simulation theory and tacit theory. While evaluating this aspect, the author tries to introduce questions regarding human beings capability to attribute belief and at the same time simulate it. According to the author, our capacity to predict and explain other individuals’ behavior is something to ponder about in detail. This competence can never be based upon the capability to attribute beliefs and desires of other human beings.

Discussion: Real Life Situation

It is important to note that various assumptions that appertain to the nature of humans’ predictive capacity have over the time developed into a general theory of the mind. Thoughts have proven that if humans apply beliefs and desires in their prediction of behavior, then they should make a tacit theory dealing with psychological influences on the same behavior. Needless to say, though, human beings do not need to appeal to their fellow human desires and beliefs as a way of predicting behavior. Majority of us usually simulate by putting ourselves in the shoes of others. The third method which humans use in predicting behaviors involves describing how we hold  the capacity to predict a big number of both human and non-human international behaviors.

Behavior prediction through simulation does not need desire or belief attribution. In substitution of appealing to tacit rules, an individual tends to simulate what is like to be another individual (Wood, Wood & Boyd, 2010). Through this, they can then predict what they would do by first determining their behavior in similar situation. A small discussion on simulation theories under this topic reveals that people are always able to give prediction and explanation of the behavior of their counterparts by using their own cognitive process. The achievement of this strategy is built upon the assumption that in similar situations and with the same beliefs, individuals will act in similar manner (Wood, Wood & Boyd, 2010). Knowledge of others’ mental states needs inputting the stimulus of the subject’s situation to one’s own cognitive architecture has been conjoined with an inference that belief structure of the subject is the same as theirs.

Application of Prediction to Our Daily Lives

We can therefore predict future happenings with a certain degree of certainty only if all past similar circumstances have always led to same outcomes. Let us assume the case of car airbags. The airbags found in my car have never been inflated. I hold an expectation that they could inflate whenever a car encounters something with a certain huge force, since car manufacturers have done testing with their cars that are similar to mine in simulated crashes. Thus, these test crashes present to me the evidence needed to make predictions concerning my car airbags, though I may not have known anything concerning the internal operations of air bags. Just like me, any other user does not require any theory or knowledge concerning the physics involved with the functioning of air-bag inflation. Because of this, I employ the usage of exemplars and then extrapolate from them by supposing that my car has a similarity to others.

We can then consider example two of someone dropping a wallet as way of determining how we can acquire knowledge regarding a specified human behavior. If we were young children, we cannot predict that someone would pick up the wallet since we have not yet learned the wallet’s value, let alone having any experience with someone dropping a wallet before. This is how children can learn that a dropped wallet would definitely be picked up: the kids learn a variety of things minus implicit instruction, for example, when they learn the language. Majority of children would learn through observation that dropped wallets are picked up later. Children are likely to observe some incidents where wallets are misplaced or dropped, and thus notice that the wallet’s owner picks it up or at least shows that they wish to possess the same wallet. Through this scenario, we can establish that a child develops an implicit theory that individuals place value in their wallets. Any child, who will not show any desire for a wallet, sees no individual use of credit cards and driver’s license will still predict that a dropped wallet will be collected after recognizing the value that adults put in wallets.

Conclusion

Pure simulators put a claim that there is no actual desire and belief attribution found in any level of predicting human behavior. They tend to avoid an original attribution of desire or belief in setting up the simulation through claiming that knowledge of the external background is sufficient to simulate well. When a person has the capacity to predict another’s behavior with different desires, then this denotes that pure simulation cannot be the basis of explanation. Formation of any hypothetical database and knowing what one would do to him/herself in a specified situation would require gaining majority of these sorts through induction. Children’s development entails learning a variety of basic rules, this process is ever continuous. Human experience alone continues to present to us new instances upon which we can generalize based on the expansion of our various experiences.