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Not by intuitions alone: Institutions shape our ownership behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2023

Reka Blazsek
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Wien, Austria blazsek_reka@phd.ceu.edu; https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/people/reka-blazsek heintzc@ceu.edu; http://christophe.heintz.free.fr/
Christophe Heintz
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Wien, Austria blazsek_reka@phd.ceu.edu; https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/people/reka-blazsek heintzc@ceu.edu; http://christophe.heintz.free.fr/

Abstract

Every day, people make decisions about who owns what. What cognitive processes produce this? The target article emphasises the role of biologically evolved intuitions about competition and cooperation. We elaborate the role of cultural evolutionary processes for solving coordination problems. A model based fully on biological evolution misses important insights for explaining the arbitrariness and historical contingency in ownership beliefs.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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