Minds Make Societies

1. Minds, Not Just Societies, Shape Human Behavior

There is no good reason human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature.

Beyond Social Constructs. Human societies are not just abstract entities shaped by history or culture. They are the product of evolved minds, with specific cognitive capacities and motivations. Understanding these underlying mechanisms is crucial for a true science of society.

Evolved Dispositions. Our brains are not blank slates. They come pre-equipped with intuitive inference systems that guide our behavior, from how we form groups to how we understand morality. These systems are the result of natural selection, shaped by the challenges our ancestors faced.

• Gaze detection: Inferring mental states from eye direction
• Moral intuitions: Automatic reactions to fairness and injustice
• Coalitional psychology: Forming alliances and managing group dynamics

Information Processing. Human minds are designed to acquire information from the environment, but this process is not passive. It requires specialized detection systems that filter and interpret information based on evolved expectations. This means that what we perceive as "reality" is always filtered through the lens of our cognitive architecture.

2. Group Conflict Stems from Coalitional Psychology, Not Tribalism

Why do people find such ideas compelling and seem prepared to incur large costs in the pursuit of ethnic rivalry?

Beyond Simple Tribalism. Group conflict is not simply the result of an innate "tribal" urge. It is a complex phenomenon driven by our evolved coalitional psychology, which motivates us to form alliances and compete with other groups for resources and social support.

Coalition Formation. Humans are naturally inclined to form alliances, but these alliances are not always based on shared values or beliefs. They are often driven by the need for social support, which is a rival good. This means that the more support one group gets, the less is available for others, leading to competition and conflict.

• Recruitment: Seeking support from others
• Commitment: Signaling loyalty to the group
• Defection: Monitoring and punishing those who betray the group

Stereotypes as Justifications. Stereotypes are not the cause of group conflict, but rather a way to justify it. Negative representations of other groups are often used to rationalize hostility and discrimination, which are ultimately driven by competition for resources and social dominance.

3. Information Isn't Always About Truth; It's About Action

It would seem that human minds are exceedingly vulnerable to low-quality information—and that scientific or technical progress seems to make little difference.

Beyond Accuracy. Human minds are not designed to seek truth for its own sake. They are designed to acquire information that is useful for survival and reproduction. This means that we are often more receptive to information that triggers our threat-detection systems or that helps us recruit social support, even if that information is not accurate.

Junk Culture. A lot of the information we transmit and receive is of low value, including rumors, conspiracy theories, and urban legends. This "junk culture" is not a sign of cognitive failure, but rather a consequence of our evolved biases and motivations.

• Threat detection: Attending to negative information
• Moralization: Framing information in terms of right and wrong
• Recruitment: Using information to build alliances

Epistemic Vigilance. While we are vulnerable to low-quality information, we also have evolved mechanisms for epistemic vigilance, which help us evaluate the reliability of information and its sources. However, these mechanisms can be overridden by our emotional responses and our need for social support.

4. Religions Emerge from Supernatural Concepts, Not Divine Mandates

Is there a religious instinct, some specific part of the mind that creates these ideas about supernatural powers and agents, those gods and spirits?

Supernatural Imagination. Religious beliefs are not the result of a special "religious instinct," but rather a consequence of our general capacity for supernatural imagination. This capacity allows us to create concepts that violate our intuitive expectations about the natural world, such as ghosts, spirits, and gods.

Intuitive Ontologies. Supernatural concepts are not entirely arbitrary. They are constructed by combining salient violations of our intuitive ontologies (our expectations about the physical and social world) with implicit confirmations of those same expectations.

• Ghosts: Dead people who can walk through walls
• Gods: Powerful agents with human-like intentions
• Magic: Actions that violate causal laws

Religious Traditions. Organized religions are a relatively recent development in human history. They involve the codification of supernatural concepts into doctrines, the creation of specialized personnel (priests), and the establishment of formal rituals. However, even in organized religions, many people maintain intuitive, often inconsistent, beliefs.

5. Families Are Diverse, Shaped by Evolution, Not Just Culture

Man, some have said, is born free yet everywhere is in chains.

Beyond the Nuclear Family. The nuclear family is not a universal or natural form of social organization. Human families are diverse, shaped by a complex interplay of evolutionary pressures and cultural norms.

Kinship Systems. Many societies are organized around kinship ties, which determine residence patterns, inheritance rules, and social obligations. These systems can be matrilineal, patrilineal, or bilateral, and they often create tensions between individual preferences and group norms.

• Matrilineal: Descent traced through the mother's line
• Patrilineal: Descent traced through the father's line
• Polyandry: One woman with multiple husbands

Pair-Bonding and Paternal Investment. The emergence of pair-bonding and paternal investment was a crucial step in human evolution. It created stable unions between men and women, with shared responsibility for raising offspring. However, these unions are not always harmonious, and they often involve trade-offs between individual and collective interests.

6. Justice Is Rooted in Cooperation, Not Just Ideals

What do people mean when they say they want a just society?

Beyond Abstract Ideals. Our sense of justice is not simply a matter of abstract ideals. It is rooted in our evolved psychology of cooperation, which motivates us to seek fair exchanges and to punish those who violate social norms.

Cooperation and Fairness. Humans are extraordinarily cooperative, but this cooperation is not unconditional. It is based on a set of intuitive expectations about fairness, reciprocity, and the distribution of resources.

• Partner choice: Preferring cooperative partners
• Free-rider detection: Identifying and punishing cheaters
• Proportionality: Rewarding effort and contribution

Market Transactions. Our evolved psychology of exchange also shapes our understanding of market transactions. We tend to view markets through the lens of our social exchange template, which emphasizes personal relationships, repeated interactions, and a concern for fairness. This can lead to a distrust of impersonal markets and a preference for more regulated forms of exchange.

7. Understanding Societies Requires Recognizing Our Cognitive Limits

The notions that people have definite reasons for behaving, that they know these reasons, that there is a control unit inside human minds that evaluates these reasons and governs behavior—all these assumptions are terribly misleading.

Folk Sociology. Our intuitive understanding of societies, what is called "folk sociology," is based on a set of simplifying assumptions, such as the idea that groups are like agents, that power is a force, and that social facts are objective realities. These assumptions are useful for navigating social life, but they can also be misleading.

Cognitive Limitations. Human minds are not designed to understand the complexity of large-scale societies. We struggle to grasp the emergent properties of social systems, the unintended consequences of our actions, and the subtle dynamics of power and influence.

• Groups as agents: Attributing intentions to social categories
• Power as force: Seeing power as a physical substance
• Social facts as things: Treating norms as objective realities

Deliberation and Its Limits. While deliberation is a crucial component of democratic societies, it is not a panacea. Our cognitive biases and limitations can distort our understanding of social issues and make it difficult to reach rational decisions. A better understanding of our cognitive limitations is crucial for creating more effective and just societies.

Last updated: January 14, 2025