"The core conscious-psychological mechanism .... is an explicit mental representation of situations that are centered on
the self and one’s relationship with other people or one’s access to biological and physical
resources that are of significance in the culture and ecology in which the person is situated. The representations are of past, present, or potential future states and might be cast
as visual images, in language, or as memories of personal experiences, that is, episodic
memories (Tulving, 2002). Of central importance is the ability to create a mental representation of a desired or fantasized state, such as a relationship with another individual,
and to compare this to a mental representation of one’s current state, such as the nature of
the current relationship with this other individual. These are conscious-psychological
representations of present and potential future states that are of personal significance and
are the content on which more conscious and effortful reasoning and problem-solving
processes are applied (Evans, 2002; Stanovich & West, 2000).
The predicted evolved function of these conscious-psychological mechanisms is to
generate a fantasy representation of how the world “should” operate, that is, a representation of the world that would be most favorable to the individual’s reproductive (e.g.,
fantasy of the “perfect” mate; Whissell, 1996) and survival interests (Geary, 1998, 2005).
This mental representation serves as a goal to be achieved and is compared against a
mental representation of current circumstances. [...] problem solving and reasoning processes serve as the means for
simulating social and other behavioral strategies that will reduce the difference between
the ideal and actual states. If the behavioral strategies are effective, then the difference
between the ideal state and the current state will be reduced and the individual will be one
step closer to gaining access to and control of the fantasized social and other resources."
David C. Geary
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