It’s from psychology: it’s where an intelligence develops a model of a thing and then mentally simulates what will happen to it given X. Caledionian crows are capable of developing mental models in solving problems, for example. A mental model of a person is basically where you’ve acquired enough information of them to approximate their intentions or actions. (Or you might use existing archetypes or your own personality for modeling—put yourself in their shoes.) For example, a lot of the off color jokes by Jimmy Carr would seem malicious from a stranger, misogynist, or racist, whereas you can see with someone like Carr that the intention is to derive amusement from the especially offensive rather than to denigrate a group.
Not a conscious technique. When you get to know a person you form some kind of brain structure which allows you to imagine that person when they aren’t around, and which makes some behaviors seem more realistic/in character for them than some other behaviors. This structure is your mental model of that person.
People talk about using their ‘mental model’ of person X fairly often. Is there an actual technique for doing this or is it just a turn of phrase?
It’s from psychology: it’s where an intelligence develops a model of a thing and then mentally simulates what will happen to it given X. Caledionian crows are capable of developing mental models in solving problems, for example. A mental model of a person is basically where you’ve acquired enough information of them to approximate their intentions or actions. (Or you might use existing archetypes or your own personality for modeling—put yourself in their shoes.) For example, a lot of the off color jokes by Jimmy Carr would seem malicious from a stranger, misogynist, or racist, whereas you can see with someone like Carr that the intention is to derive amusement from the especially offensive rather than to denigrate a group.
Not a conscious technique. When you get to know a person you form some kind of brain structure which allows you to imagine that person when they aren’t around, and which makes some behaviors seem more realistic/in character for them than some other behaviors. This structure is your mental model of that person.
I use this phrase a lot; in my case it’s just a turn of phrase. Can’t speak for anyone else, though.
Sorta both. Basically your mental model of someone is anything internal that use to predict their (re)actions.