Joint Action and the Science of Team Science Deborah Tollefsen University of Memphis

Joint Action Doing things together How do minds and bodies interact and coordinate across time and space to bring about a change in the environment? Over the past several decades there has been an increased interest in understanding joint action Within Philosophy—the field of collective intentionality Within Psychology—the cognitive science of joint action

Collective Intentionality “Collective Intentionality” refers to a subfield of philosophy that studies social phenomena such as joint action, group belief, collective responsibility, the construction of social facts, and group cognition. Margaret Gilbert, (e.g. 1989, 2000, 2006, 20015); John Searle (e.g. 1990, 1995, 2009), Michael Bratman (e.g. 1992, 1993, 2014); Raimo Tuomela (e.g. 1988, 2005, 2010, 2013)

Philosophical Approaches to Joint Action Philosopher’s interest in joint action stems, in part, from an interest in human action/agency. Distinction between voluntary and involuntary action: there are things that we do and things that happen to us. What is the difference? How to characterize purposeful activity? Intentions Assumption: if individual human action involves intentions, joint action requires intention as well. Question: Does joint action require anything in addition to the intentions of individual members?

Shared Intention Why Shared Intention? Example: Painting the house together Individual intentions to do one’s part are derived from the shared intention. What are shared intentions? A special mental state of an individual? Or are they the intention of a group? Can groups, themselves, have intentions? Tollefsen, D Groups as Agents, Polity Press.

We-mode thinking One of the basic ideas developed in collective intentionality is the idea that doing things together (successfully) requires a shift in perspective from an I-mode to a we-mode. (Raimo Tuomela, 2005, 2010, 2013) Shared intentions are not simply intentions that we have in common, they are formed from the first personal plural perspective.

The Cognitive Science of Joint Action Philosophical accounts of shared intention tend to focus on high level mental states (intentions, plans, goals) and specifically on prior intentions. But joint actions aren’t always preplanned and just as individual action involves a number of lower level processes (e.g. perceptual representations, motor programs), joint action involves lower level processes. The cognitive science of joint action looks at the actual mechanisms that bring about the coordination of bodies and minds. Knoblich G, Butterfill S, Sebanz N. Psychological research on joint action: theory and data. In: Ross BH, editor. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation. San Diego: Elsevier; p (The psychology of learning and theory: Advances in research and theory).

Joint Action Research and its relevance for the SciTS We mode thinking: Thinking from the third person plural perspective can increase goal alignment, help movement from co-action to integrated collaboration, increase integrative capacity. Collective responsibility (both moral and epistemic) in the context of team science. Models for shared/collective responsibility. Lower level alignment processes and the facilitation of team science. What sorts of alignment processes facilitate and inhibit scientific collaborations? A dynamical systems approach to the study of teams? Dale, R., Fusaroli, R., Duran, N. D., & Richardson, D. C. (2014). The Self-Organization of human interaction. Psychology of Learning and Motivation - Advances in Research and Theory, 59,

References Bratman, Michael E. (1993). Shared intention. Ethics 104 (1): Bratman, Michael E. (1992). Shared cooperative activity. Philosophical Review 101 (2): Bratman, Michael E. (2014). Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together. Oxford University Press Usa. Gilbert, Margaret (1989). On Social Facts. Routledge. Gilbert, Margaret (2006). A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society. OUP Oxford. Gilbert, Margaret (2000). Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

References Gilbert, Margaret (2015). Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World. Oxford University Press Usa. Knoblich G, Butterfill S, Sebanz N. Psychological research on joint action: theory and data. In: Ross BH, editor. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation. San Diego: Elsevier; p (The psychology of learning and theory: Advances in research and theory). Dale, R., Fusaroli, R., Duran, N. D. & Richardson, D. C. (2014). The self- organization of human interaction. In B. Ross (Ed.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation (pp ). Academic Press. Searle, John (1990). Collective Intentions and Actions. In Philip R. Cohen Jerry Morgan & Martha Pollack (eds.Intentions in Communication. MIT Press Intentions in Communication. MIT Press

References Searle, John (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. Free Press. Searle, John R. (2009). Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford University Press. Tollefsen, Deborah & Dale, Rick (2011). Naturalizing joint action: A process-based approach. Philosophical Psychology 25 (3): Tollefsen, Deborah (2015). Groups as Agents. Polity. Tuomela, Raimo (2010). The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View. OUP Usa. Tuomela, Raimo (2013). Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. OUP Usa.

References Tuomela, Raimo (2005). We-intentions revisited. Philosophical Studies 125 (3): Tuomela, Raimo & Miller, Kaarlo (1988). We-intentions. Philosophical Studies 53 (3):