{"title":"Tinkering with social tinkering.","authors":"Nick Chater, Morten H Christiansen","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106621","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Our commentators have broadly welcomed the notion of social tinkering, while also offering a range of suggestions, refinements, and potential challenges. In our response, we clarify the concept of social tinkering, sharpen our account of the six stages of cultural evolution, consider whether additional mechanisms are needed to explain the emergence of cultural complexity, and explore a range of possible extensions to the social tinkering framework. We conclude by discussing broader implications and future directions for this research program, including a reconsideration of Rogers' paradox.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e420"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148988051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultural complexity is multifaceted: Variations in social tinkering.","authors":"Jingyi Xu, Kathleen H Corriveau","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106578","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Chater and Christiansen propose a 6-stage sequence through which social tinkering drives cultural evolution and cultural complexity. We highlight that people's selectivity of information uptake from social others and top-down social changes results in variations in social tinkering. We argue that the process of cultural evolution and the path to cultural complexity is less linear than proposed.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e419"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cognitive practices and the transformation of the social tinkerer.","authors":"Richard Menary, Alexander James Gillett","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106530","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We supplement and challenge Chater and Christiansen's (C&C) proposal of social tinkering by drawing on cognitive integration. Learning and mastering cognitive practices transforms the cognitive capacities of agents facilitating novel cognitive capacities. This entails reconfiguring C&C's proposed six stages as loops rather than a strict ordering.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e404"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relationship-bound roles and role-filler independence in social cognition.","authors":"Hannah Hok, Ashley J Thomas","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X2610572X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X2610572X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The target article proposes an evolutionarily old \"institutional stance,\" where people make sense of others' behavior through roles independent of individuals. We argue that representations of such role-filler-independent roles are likely not primitives. We offer an alternative: relationship-bound role representations that encode particular individuals. Role-filler independence may instead be a cultural tool that addresses coordination challenges in large-scale groups.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e380"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148988023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A lobbying theory of cultural evolution: Rhetoric, expediency, and self-interest promote inequality in the prescriptive grammar of complex institutions.","authors":"Duncan Noel Edward Stibbard-Hawkes","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106487","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X26106487","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anthropologists have noted, time and again, that cultural norms and institutions often (1) are \"functional,\" providing context-relevant benefits, (2) convergently evolve, and (3) benefit certain individuals over others. In this commentary, I consider inequality, self-interest, and coercion in complex cultural institutions. I extend Chater and Christiansen's theory of social tinkering, taking cues from Mercier and Sperber's argumentative theory of human reason and Singh et al.'s self-interested enforcement hypothesis, to argue that humans are well-adapted \"cultural lobbyists.\"</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e412"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How much is left for the theory-theory to explain?","authors":"Joseph Cruz","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105627","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X26105627","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jara-Ettinger and Dunham treat the \"mentalistic stance\" as theory-theory, leaving the institutional stance vulnerable to a familiar reply: the tacit theory can be context-tuned to fit the surprise cases. I argue that the institutional stance is best motivated by pairing it with simulation-based mindreading and scripts, which together reduce theory-theory's distinctive explanatory role and preserve the authors' appeal to computational economy.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e376"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Taking institutions (and development) seriously.","authors":"Alexander Noyes","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105561","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X26105561","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jara-Ettinger and Dunham diminish institutions by conflating <i>institutional roles</i> with roles in a very broad sense. In doing so, they obscure the important conceptual changes that occur during middle childhood. I review the evidence, undiscussed by Jara-Ettinger and Dunham, that shows the absence of a Theory of Institutions in early childhood.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e382"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The barista \"must be friendly\": Dispositional entailments as role content.","authors":"Hagop Sarkissian","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105615","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X26105615","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jara-Ettinger and Dunham formalize role content as tasks, powers, and limitations, but their barista who \"must be friendly\" points to another role category: dispositional entailments, or expectations about orientation and manner. These neither fit their taxonomy nor reduce to mental state attributions. Recognizing them, I argue, expands the institutional stance's evaluative reach beyond the assessment of discrete role requirements.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e387"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sacred values as role-constitutive norms in social groups.","authors":"Katrina Fincher","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26105603","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jara-Ettinger and Dunham propose that institutional cognition tracks roles and their normative expectations. I argue that decentralized roles lacking formal authority require an additional mechanism to stabilize legitimacy. Sacred values - nonnegotiable commitments that impose costly obligations - function as role-constitutive norms that signal intrinsic devotion, thereby determining legitimate role occupancy and preventing free riding on group identities.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e377"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond nearsighted and directed: Varied sources of cultural change.","authors":"Kaleda K Denton","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106475","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Chater and Christiansen claim that humans' cultural systems arise in an unplanned manner via social tinkering, a process that is nearsighted and directed. However, cultural change can be planned and farsighted, arbitrary and undirected, or anywhere in between. Focusing primarily on social tinkering may cause other important sources of cultural change to be overlooked.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e399"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}