Just to bring you all up to speed, how about you take it now? Don't worry, it's pretty quick. Here's the scenario: Sally and Ann are in their room. Sally has a candy bar. In the room with them, there is a box and a basket. Sally puts the candy bar in the basket, and then leaves the room. Ann takes the candy bar and moves it from the basket to the box. Sally comes back into the room.
Now here's the test: Where does Sally look for the candy bar? (Don't worry, it's not a trick question) You probably said she looks in the basket, right? Of course. Congratulations! You passed the Sally-Ann test! Don't get cocky about it, though- Most of you-- with the exception of some with Down's and others on the Autism spectrum-- have been passing the Sally-Ann test since you were about four years old.
What your passing of the test actually signifies (supposedly) is your ability to understand the Theory of Other Minds. It's proof that you understand that Sally has a mind of her own and that in her version of reality, the candy bar is still in the basket, even if you know a different truth. You can conceive that other minds exist and are different from yours. And that's pretty cool that we can do that!
Except that in real life, we fail the Sally-Ann test. Terribly. All the time.
Any moment when you've found someone to be not on the same page as you in a situation- The split second when you think 'how could they not know X Y and Z?' At that moment, you are failing the test. Every time you give travel instructions to someone and leave out important landmarks because you're so used to them they don't even matter to your experience of the route, you fail the test. Really anytime you forget that the contents of another's mind can be anything and will be different from yours, you fail the test.
Just because we can conceive of other minds doesn't mean we are thinking about them all the time, and much of the time when we're not paying attention, we just assume everyone's thinking in terms of the way we think because the way we think is our go-to perspective. Just because you did pass the Sally-Ann test just now, doesn't mean you do all the time. Like you may have noticed, even if it may seem obvious, it takes a little thought to keep other perspectives in mind.
It all goes back to that whole Empathy thing I've been writing about here sometimes. Most people's natural instinct is to think in terms of their own self. And that's alright because mostly the self is all we have. But it's when we put that extra effort into keeping other minds in mind, and not focusing just on what's in our own heads, that we can create and build and think beyond the individual.
