Folk psychology

In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure, excitement and anxiety use common linguistic terms as opposed to technical or scientific jargon. Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how everyday people--those without formal training in the various academic fields of science--go about attributing mental states.