{"title":"The pros and cons of reverting to methodological individualism.","authors":"Olivier Morin","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104329","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X25104329","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>I read Singh's stimulating proposal as a comeback to methodological individualism: social and cultural phenomena are driven by individual motivations, given by individuals' subjective reasons for action. Singh's version of this classic doctrine is useful when it leads him to question cultural group selection. But contrary to methodological individualism, the cognitive mechanisms shaping culture are not necessarily conscious, coherent, or causal.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e304"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429815","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":"Core knowledge shapes what actions are considered and how others will perceive them.","authors":"Ashley J Thomas, Hossein Samani","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25104500","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We propose an extension in which core knowledge - innate, skeletal, and abstract cognitive representations - shape \"super attractors.\" They shape our cognition and our communication with others. People choose actions based not only on what they feel is right but also on whether they think others will agree. We propose that universal priors shape the space of shared intuitions.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e309"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429654","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":"Subjective selection needs context: Culture shapes goal selection, evaluations of usefulness, and \"actual\" effectiveness.","authors":"Yulia E Chentsova-Dutton, Andrew G Ryder","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25104470","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Singh compellingly describes some psychological factors that shape selection of cultural variants, but his approach gives insufficient attention to how culture shapes psychology. We argue the subjective selection account needs to pay greater attention to the psychological nuances of goal pursuit, cultural shaping of both perceived and \"actual\" effectiveness, and importance of social consensus cues.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e293"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429785","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":"Functionalism versus the structuralist tradition.","authors":"Giulio Ongaro","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X2510441X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X2510441X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>I contrast Singh's subjective functionalism with structuralist-related approaches in anthropology, where \"attractors\" are not isolated packages of beliefs and practices but robust relationships between such packages within cultural systems. While impressive in its synthesis, Singh's account falls short of explaining a defining feature of human culture: its holistic nature. I use shamanism as an illustrative example.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e305"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429803","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":"On the originality of subjective selection and the importance of payoff-biased diffusion and migration in shaping the cultural manifold.","authors":"Alex Mesoudi","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25104263","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>I suggest that, first, the broad framework of subjective selection proposed by Singh is not as different from existing research in cultural evolution as is made out, and second, that an under-discussed but important cause of cross-cultural regularities (the \"cultural manifold\") is payoff-biased diffusion or migration between societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e301"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429728","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":"If lullabies and hero stories are super-attractors, what are music and language? Absolute universals imply genetic mechanisms.","authors":"Patrick E Savage","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104317","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X25104317","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>I praise the synthesis and expansion of attractor theory to explain statistical universals, but critique its failure to explain absolute universals. I agree that lullabies, hero stories, and shamanism are good candidates for primarily cultural evolutionary explanations, but argue that the larger, most universal categories they are sub-phenomena of - music, language, religion - require gene-culture coevolutionary explanations.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e308"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429751","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":"Will cultural evolution regain its sight?","authors":"Joshua C Jackson, Shiyun Cao","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104354","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X25104354","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The field of cultural evolution has long emphasized forms of social learning where learners are \"blind\" to payoffs of cultural traits, while neglecting \"sighted\" processes like guided variation. We review new insights that could inform psychologically enriched models of social learning. These insights reveal new ways that blindness creeps into selection, even when agents appraise the payoffs of cultural traits.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e297"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429783","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":"Whose subjectivity? Power and inequality in cultural selection.","authors":"Zachary H Garfield","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104512","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X25104512","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Singh's framework of subjective selection compellingly links individual cognition to cultural convergence. My commentary emphasizes that subjective selection is hierarchically mediated: not all individuals have equal capacity to shape or transmit their evaluations. Hierarchies of influence, authority, and interdependence determine whose perceptions are amplified into cultural traditions. Accounting for inequality and social power clarifies how the cultural manifold reflects both shared psychology and the unequal distribution of influence within human societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e294"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429756","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":"Basic emotions underlie both proximal and distal behaviors, resulting in social institutions that are either adaptive, vestigial, or a little of both.","authors":"Joseph Polimeni","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25104330","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The concept of super-attracters downplays the impact of basic emotions upon decision-making. The complexity of emotions belies the instinctual nature of such emotional systems, which are ultimately established by genetics and evolutionary processes. Examples of super-attractants may perhaps be better framed as evolutionary adaptiveness versus vestigial/byproduct behaviors.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e306"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429719","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":"Language is a super-attractor: Does it evolve through subjective selection?","authors":"Christophe Frédéric Heintz, Daniel Nettle","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X25104445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25104445","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Language exemplifies Singh's super-attractor concept while testing the explanatory limits of subjective selection, which is just one of the processes of cultural evolution. Subjective selection explains many linguistic features through speakers' instrumental goals. However, other types of processes also shape language evolution: some, related to learning and perception, for instance, will not involve intentions or conscious selection. Others involve intentionally creating and transforming linguistic constructions rather than merely selecting them from random mutations.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e296"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148429796","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}