The perceived intentionality of groups

Heider and Simmel [Heider, F., Simmel, M., 1944. An experimental study of a pparent behavior. American Journal of Psychology 57, 243-259] found that pe ople spontaneously describe depictions of simple moving objects in terms of purposeful and intentional action. Not all intentional beings are objects, however, and people often attribute purposeful activity to non-object indi viduals such as countries, basketball teams, and families. This raises the question of whether the same effect found by Heider and Simmel would hold f or non-object individuals such as groups. We replicate and extend the origi nal study, using both objects and groups as stimuli, and introducing two co ntrol conditions with groups that are not engaged in structured movement. W e found that under the condition that best promoted the attribution of inte ntionality, moving groups are viewed as purposeful and goal-directed entiti es to the same extent that moving objects are. These results suggest that t he psychological distinction between the notion of 'intentional entity' and the notion of 'object' can be found even in the perception of moving geome trical figures. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.