Simulation-driven mentalizing facilitates projection and introjection

Mental life is filled with thoughts about the social world and one’s place in it. Mentalizing, or ascribing mental content (e.g., preferences, beliefs, visuospatial perspectives) to others and oneself, often requires considering self-representations and target representations in relation to each other. We propose a model of mentalizing wherein simulation, which, minimally, involves activating a self-representation, facilitates two phenomena: projection (using self-representations to construct target representations) is an inherent element of simulation-driven mentalizing, and introjection (using target representations to shift self-representations) arises incidentally from simulating another’s mind. We review evidence primarily from adults supporting this model, identify theoretically-relevant factors that amplify and attenuate projection and introjection, and discuss implications for questions of longstanding interest in cognitive science (e.g., Is the self special?).