Mental State Attribution to Nonhuman Primates and Other Animals by Rural Inhabitants of the Community of Conhuas Near the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Mind attribution to nonhuman agents is claimed to be the base of ascribing moral rights to them. It is sufficiently common to be considered a human universal, and the way it is done is related with a range of personal and animal-related factors. The aim of the present study was to identify the folk representations that underlie the attribution of emotions and complex mental states to two local primate species and a range of wild and domestic animals. For this, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews to a convenience sample of 23 women and men from the community of Conhuas, Campeche, situated near the Biosphere Reserve of Calakmul in southern Mexico. Data from the interviews were analyzed via a qualitative content analysis. We found that the nature of mental states ascribed to animals is based on a set of triggering factors that include behavioral expressions, animal characteristics, and circumstances in which these behaviors occur that altogether point to an underlying mental state. We discuss these results considering the potential cognitive processes involved in these attributions.