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Folk-economic beliefs: An evolutionary cognitive model.

Pascal Boyer¹, Michael Bang Petersen²

¹Departments of Psychology and Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130. pboyer@wustl.eduwww.pascalboyer.net.

The Behavioral and Brain Sciences

|October 13, 2017

Summary

Folk-economic beliefs, often differing from economic theory, arise from evolved social cognition systems. These intuitive beliefs significantly influence political choices and policy reception.

Keywords:

cultural beliefs cultural transmission economic psychology evolutionary psychology folk-economics heuristics and biases political psychology

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Behavioral Economics
Social Psychology

Background:

Folk economics encompasses lay beliefs about economic phenomena, often contradicting formal economic theory.
Previous explanations focused on ignorance or bias, failing to predict specific belief content.
These beliefs significantly shape political attitudes and policy acceptance.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose a cognitive framework for understanding the emergence and cultural success of folk-economic beliefs.
To investigate the role of evolved social inference systems in shaping economic intuitions.

Main Methods:

Theoretical framework integrating evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.
Analysis of how ancestral social adaptations influence modern economic intuitions.
Connecting cognitive mechanisms to observable folk-economic beliefs and political outcomes.

Main Results:

Folk-economic beliefs are predictable through the lens of evolved, specialized inference systems (e.g., free-rider detection, fairness).
Modern economic contexts activate these ancient systems, generating specific intuitions (e.g., distrust of impersonal markets).
These intuitions demonstrably influence the intuitive appeal of certain economic policies.

Conclusions:

Evolved social cognitive systems, not just ignorance, explain folk-economic beliefs.
Understanding these cognitive underpinnings is crucial for predicting political choices and policy reception.
This framework offers a systematic approach to studying the cognitive factors behind economic beliefs.