Rethinking Norm Psychology

Abstract

Norms permeate human life. Most of our activities can be characterised by rules about what is appropriate, allowed, required, or forbidden – rules that are crucial in making us hyper-cooperative animals. This article examines the current cognitive-evolutionary account of ‘norm psychology’ and proposes an alternative that is better supported by evidence and better placed to promote interdisciplinary dialogue. The incumbent theory focusses on rules and claims that humans genetically inherit cognitive and motivational mechanisms specialised for processing these rules. The cultural evolutionary alternative defines normativity in relation to behaviour – compliance, enforcement, and commentary – and suggests that it depends on implicit and explicit processes. The implicit processes are genetically inherited and domain-general; rather than being specialised for normativity, they do many jobs in many species. The explicit processes are culturally inherited and domain-specific; they are constructed from mentalising and reasoning by social interaction in childhood. The cultural evolutionary, or ‘cognitive gadget’, perspective suggests that people alive today - parents, educators, elders, politicians, lawyers – have more responsibility for sustaining normativity than the nativist view implies. Our actions do not only shape and transmit the rules, they create in each new generation mental processes that can grasp the rules and put them into action.

Normative Processing Needs Multiple Levels of Explanation: From Algorithm to Implementation

“…Whilst some are enshrined in law (e.g., do not steal), others operate more informally, such as how we greet other people. A key debate is whether the cognitive or mental processes underlying norms are domain-specific, genetically inherited modules (Fehr & Schurtenberger, 2018;Henrich & Muthukrishna, 2021;Kelly & Davis, 2018) or whether they are domain-general psychological and neural processes generated through social learning (Heyes, 2022). A new proposal draws from both nativist and domain-general accounts and places 'cultural evolution' as central to norm psychology.…”

“…A new proposal draws from both nativist and domain-general accounts and places 'cultural evolution' as central to norm psychology. In this proposal, norms are shaped by a distinctively human, domainspecific cognitive process that is learned through domain-general associative learning mechanisms (Heyes, 2022). This novel cultural evolution of norm psychology framework (henceforth CENP) incorporates aspects of both domain-general and domain-specific processes whilst remaining non-nativist.…”

“…A second important aspect in an empirical framework of norm psychology is an appreciation of the basic building blocks for norms. Heyes (2022) proposes that a 'cognitive gadget' that is culturally learned and domain specific is central for norm psychology. The cognitive gadget version contrasts with theories that are innate and domain-general, or innate and domainspecific.…”

Tradition and invention: The bifocal stance theory of cultural evolution

“…In keeping with the target article, we regard ritual stance imitation as norm learning. Normative behavior has two main components: (1) enforcement and (2) compliance (Heyes, 2022).…”

“I Should” Versus “I Want To”: Can Heyes’s Cultural Cognitive-Evolutionary Account Explain the Phenomenology of Normativity?

“…In the target article, Heyes (2022) delivered a forceful critique of the nativist cognitive-evolutionary accounts that have dominated norm psychology to this point (e.g., Sripada & Stich, 2006). However, in developing her cultural cognitive-evolutionary account, Heyes repeated a mistake made by the cognitive-evolutionary accounts by overlooking a core explanandum of normative psychology: normative motivation, or a feeling that one "ought to," is "obligated to," or "should" do something, as opposed to a nonnormative feeling of desire/aversion (for review, see Theriault, 2023;Theriault et al, 2021aTheriault et al, , 2021b; see also, Asch, 1952/1962.…”