We believe that Boyer & Petersen's (B&P's) model may hold promise for parsimoniously explaining large-scale lay beliefs about the global economy (what they call folk-economic beliefs [FEBs]) by appealing to more basic cognitive mechanisms tuned to specific evolutionary challenges. However, we argue that the model B&P have proposed fails to adequately explain at least two major findings regarding FEBs that have been reliably demonstrated in the literature. The first is the observation of widespread individual differences in the degree to which various FEBs are endorsed across the population. The second is the observation that FEBs tend to cohere into distinct ideologies in largely predictable ways.
We turn first to the issue of individual differences. B&P argue that our evolutionary history has made certain economic beliefs “easier to acquire” (sect. 3.4, para. 2), predisposing humans towards adopting these economic beliefs over others. If this is true, these beliefs should be disproportionately represented in the population, with high levels of endorsement across individuals and cultures. Yet the existing data suggest that this is not the case. For many of the proposed FEBs, there is a great deal of variation in endorsement both within and across cultures. While some amount of variation is to be expected for even the most adaptive of cognitive mechanisms (as has been shown, e.g., for preferential attention to threat; Bar-Haim et al. Reference Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn2007), the observed variability in the proposed FEBs is far more than the modest individual differences that would be expected from the strong evolutionary account B&P offer; in many cases, a large proportion of people actually hold beliefs that are the polar opposite of the FEBs proposed by B&P. For example, the Pew Research Center (2014) recently surveyed nationally representative samples from 44 countries to examine attitudes towards international trade. Although they found that a substantial portion of the population (14%) endorsed the view that international trade is generally bad for their nation [FEB 1], far more (80%) expressed the belief that international trade is generally good. A similar level of disagreement can be seen in the data regarding attitudes towards the free market: The same international Pew survey found that 64% of respondents endorsed the view that the free market is generally good – the opposite of the negative views predicted by B&P [FEB 5], which were expressed by only 28% of respondents.
Attitudes towards immigration also seem inconsistent with the B&P account. Recent data from a Gallup World Poll conducted across 142 countries showed that while 29% of individuals believe that immigrants take desired jobs from citizens (FEB 2: Immigrants “steal jobs”), nearly the same amount (27%) believe the opposite – that immigrants take low-paying jobs that citizens don't want (Esipova et al. Reference Esipova, Pugliese and Ray2015). These data, demonstrating a lack of widespread endorsement of these three FEBs, pose a problem for the claim that these FEBs are particularly easy to acquire, as is suggested by B&P. (Most of the other FEBs the authors propose have received less attention in research and polling, and the extent to which they are endorsed is therefore unclear.) At the very least, their model would have to offer a potential mechanism for why, when, and how these (ostensibly) evolutionarily privileged beliefs are so easily displaced.
The authors do address the existence of individual variation in one domain – ideological differences in support for welfare programs. They attempt to account for this variation as the product of ideological differences in other, upstream beliefs about the “deservingness” of welfare recipients. While it is possible that there are analogous upstream ideological beliefs that give rise to the observed variation in the other FEBs discussed above, the burden would be on B&P to provide this evidence, and to convincingly demonstrate that their proposed FEBs are indeed evolutionarily privileged, despite being so easily overridden across so many domains by other ideological beliefs.
Data on variation in FEBs also reveal a second issue that deserves mention: These beliefs do not vary randomly from one individual to the next. Rather, they tend to cohere into distinct networks, forming the reliable constellations of beliefs that are often referred to as political ideologies. Although some of the content of these ideologies is, of course, particular to the unique history and culture of a given nation, multiple distinct ideologies show considerable consistency across nations and eras (Bobbio Reference Bobbio1996; Jost et al. Reference Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski and Sulloway2003; Muller Reference Muller, Smelser and Baltes2001). Any explanation of how and why FEBs vary across individuals must also account for the observation that they tend to vary in largely predictable ways – a fact that at present seems to find no explanation in B&P's model.
In sum, B&P have proposed an intriguing and novel theory that may hold promise of providing an ultimate explanation for lay economic beliefs, but if their model is to be successful, it must be able to account for the data demonstrating that people's economic beliefs vary in substantial and predictable ways.
We believe that Boyer & Petersen's (B&P's) model may hold promise for parsimoniously explaining large-scale lay beliefs about the global economy (what they call folk-economic beliefs [FEBs]) by appealing to more basic cognitive mechanisms tuned to specific evolutionary challenges. However, we argue that the model B&P have proposed fails to adequately explain at least two major findings regarding FEBs that have been reliably demonstrated in the literature. The first is the observation of widespread individual differences in the degree to which various FEBs are endorsed across the population. The second is the observation that FEBs tend to cohere into distinct ideologies in largely predictable ways.
We turn first to the issue of individual differences. B&P argue that our evolutionary history has made certain economic beliefs “easier to acquire” (sect. 3.4, para. 2), predisposing humans towards adopting these economic beliefs over others. If this is true, these beliefs should be disproportionately represented in the population, with high levels of endorsement across individuals and cultures. Yet the existing data suggest that this is not the case. For many of the proposed FEBs, there is a great deal of variation in endorsement both within and across cultures. While some amount of variation is to be expected for even the most adaptive of cognitive mechanisms (as has been shown, e.g., for preferential attention to threat; Bar-Haim et al. Reference Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn2007), the observed variability in the proposed FEBs is far more than the modest individual differences that would be expected from the strong evolutionary account B&P offer; in many cases, a large proportion of people actually hold beliefs that are the polar opposite of the FEBs proposed by B&P. For example, the Pew Research Center (2014) recently surveyed nationally representative samples from 44 countries to examine attitudes towards international trade. Although they found that a substantial portion of the population (14%) endorsed the view that international trade is generally bad for their nation [FEB 1], far more (80%) expressed the belief that international trade is generally good. A similar level of disagreement can be seen in the data regarding attitudes towards the free market: The same international Pew survey found that 64% of respondents endorsed the view that the free market is generally good – the opposite of the negative views predicted by B&P [FEB 5], which were expressed by only 28% of respondents.
Attitudes towards immigration also seem inconsistent with the B&P account. Recent data from a Gallup World Poll conducted across 142 countries showed that while 29% of individuals believe that immigrants take desired jobs from citizens (FEB 2: Immigrants “steal jobs”), nearly the same amount (27%) believe the opposite – that immigrants take low-paying jobs that citizens don't want (Esipova et al. Reference Esipova, Pugliese and Ray2015). These data, demonstrating a lack of widespread endorsement of these three FEBs, pose a problem for the claim that these FEBs are particularly easy to acquire, as is suggested by B&P. (Most of the other FEBs the authors propose have received less attention in research and polling, and the extent to which they are endorsed is therefore unclear.) At the very least, their model would have to offer a potential mechanism for why, when, and how these (ostensibly) evolutionarily privileged beliefs are so easily displaced.
The authors do address the existence of individual variation in one domain – ideological differences in support for welfare programs. They attempt to account for this variation as the product of ideological differences in other, upstream beliefs about the “deservingness” of welfare recipients. While it is possible that there are analogous upstream ideological beliefs that give rise to the observed variation in the other FEBs discussed above, the burden would be on B&P to provide this evidence, and to convincingly demonstrate that their proposed FEBs are indeed evolutionarily privileged, despite being so easily overridden across so many domains by other ideological beliefs.
Data on variation in FEBs also reveal a second issue that deserves mention: These beliefs do not vary randomly from one individual to the next. Rather, they tend to cohere into distinct networks, forming the reliable constellations of beliefs that are often referred to as political ideologies. Although some of the content of these ideologies is, of course, particular to the unique history and culture of a given nation, multiple distinct ideologies show considerable consistency across nations and eras (Bobbio Reference Bobbio1996; Jost et al. Reference Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski and Sulloway2003; Muller Reference Muller, Smelser and Baltes2001). Any explanation of how and why FEBs vary across individuals must also account for the observation that they tend to vary in largely predictable ways – a fact that at present seems to find no explanation in B&P's model.
In sum, B&P have proposed an intriguing and novel theory that may hold promise of providing an ultimate explanation for lay economic beliefs, but if their model is to be successful, it must be able to account for the data demonstrating that people's economic beliefs vary in substantial and predictable ways.