Boyer & Petersen (B&P) lay out an evolutionarily grounded framework to produce concrete, testable predictions about economic phenomena. We commend this step forward, but suggest the framework requires more consideration of cultural contexts that provide necessary input for cognitive systems to operate on. We discuss the role of culture when examining both evolved cognitive systems and social exchange contexts.

Boyer & Petersen (B&P) assume that the intuitive systems underlying folk-economic beliefs (FEBs), and, in particular, emporiophobia, evolved in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA), before markets. This makes the historical development of markets puzzling. We suggest that what evolved in the EEA are templates that help children develop intuitive systems partly adjusted to their cultural environment. This helps resolve the puzzle.

Boyer & Petersen suggest that folk-economic beliefs result from evolved domain-specific cognitive systems concerned with social exchange. However, a major challenge for their account is that each folk-economic belief can be explained by different combinations of evolved cognitive systems. We illustrate this by offering alternative explanations for several economic beliefs they discuss.

Evidence for an EEA-derived domain-specific inference system must point to an active, latent representational structure. Otherwise we need to hypothesize only passive, virtual belief not over-ridden on the basis of the individual's experience. The folk economic beliefs identified by Boyer & Petersen (B&P), being with one exception about macroeconomics, might be virtual beliefs that people extrapolate across the micro–macro scale shift based on their experiences with markets.

A main tenet of folk economics is the assumption that the world is zero-sum. Many implications stem from this assumption. These include: beliefs regarding taxation; beliefs regarding economic regulation; beliefs regarding inequality; and the core of Marxist economics. Zero-sum folk economic thinking is short-term and deals with distribution; standard economic thinking deals with the size of the pie and is longer-term.

We argue that existing data on folk-economic beliefs (FEBs) present challenges to Boyer & Petersen's model. Specifically, the widespread individual variation in endorsement of FEBs casts doubt on the claim that humans are evolutionarily predisposed towards particular economic beliefs. Additionally, the authors' model cannot account for the systematic covariance between certain FEBs, such as those observed in distinct political ideologies.

We applaud Boyer & Petersen for the advancement of an ultimate explanation of the dynamics of folk-economic beliefs and the political actions linked to them. To our mind, however, key inference systems regulating societal interaction and resource distribution evolved for more core relations than those of proportionate exchange, and situational factors are not the only constraints on how such systems produce economic beliefs

Although Boyer & Petersen (B&P) make the case for evolutionary roots of folk economics stronger, their evolutionary model ultimately does not deliver folk-economic explanations that are both novel and correct. We argue that (a) most current explanations are evolutionary already; (b) B&P's model is as ad hoc as other theories, and proves too much; and (c) it overrates evolution at the cost of discounting other crucial factors.

Some questions, such as when a statistical distribution of incomes becomes too unequal, seem highly attention-grabbing, inferentially productive, and morally vexing. Yet many other questions that are crucial to the functioning of a modern economy seem uninteresting non-issues. An evolutionary–psychological framework to study folk-economic beliefs has the potential to illuminate this puzzle.

Boyer & Petersen (B&P) argue that folk-economic beliefs are widespread – shaped by evolved cognitive systems – and they offer exemplar beliefs to illustrate their thesis. In this commentary, we highlight evidence of substantial variation in one of these exemplars: beliefs about immigration. Contra claims by B&P, we argue that the balance of this evidence suggests the “folk” may actually hold positive beliefs about the economic impact of immigration.

Specific features of our evolved cognitive architecture explain why some aspects of the economy are “seen” and others are “not seen.” Drawing from the commentaries of economists, psychologists, and other social scientists on our original proposal, we propose a more precise model of the acquisition and spread of folk-beliefs about the economy. In particular, we try to provide a clearer delimitation of the field of folk-economic beliefs (sect. R2) and to dispel possible misunderstandings of the role of variation in evolutionary psychology (sect. R3). We also comment on the difficulty of explaining folk-economic beliefs in terms of domain-general processes or biases (sect. R4), as developmental studies show how encounters with specific environments calibrate domain-specific systems (sect. R5). We offer a more detailed description of the connections between economic beliefs and political psychology (sect. R6) and of the probable causes of individual variation in that domain (sect. R7). Taken together, these arguments point to a better integration or consilience between economics and human evolution (sect. R8).

Whether upheld as heroic or reviled as terrorism, people have been willing to lay down their lives for the sake of their groups throughout history. Why? Previous theories of extreme self-sacrifice have highlighted a range of seemingly disparate factors, such as collective identity, outgroup hostility, and kin psychology. In this paper, I attempt to integrate many of these factors into a single overarching theory based on several decades of collaborative research with a range of special populations, from tribes in Papua New Guinea to Libyan insurgents and from Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia to Brazilian football hooligans. These studies suggest that extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion, a visceral sense of oneness with the group, resulting from intense collective experiences (e.g., painful rituals or the horrors of frontline combat) or from perceptions of shared biology. In ancient foraging societies, fusion would have enabled warlike bands to stand united despite strong temptations to scatter and flee. The fusion mechanism has often been exploited in cultural rituals, not only by tribal societies but also in specialized cells embedded in armies, cults, and terrorist organizations. With the rise of social complexity and the spread of states and empires, fusion has also been extended to much larger groups, including doctrinal religions, ethnicities, and ideological movements. Explaining extreme self-sacrifice is not only a scientific priority but also a practical challenge as we seek a collective response to suicide, terrorism, and other extreme expressions of outgroup hostility that continue to bedevil humanity today.

Why do some individuals willingly make extreme sacrifices for their group? Whitehouse argues that such willingness stems from a visceral feeling of oneness with the group – identity fusion – that emerges from intense, shared dysphoric experiences or from perceived close kinship with others. Although Whitehouse's argument makes a valuable contribution to understanding extreme sacrifice, factors independent of identity fusion, such as devotion to sacred values, can predict self-sacrifice.

The problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

Whitehouse's theory offers one plausible pathway toward extreme self-sacrifice, but it fails to explain sacrificial acts that are inspired by heartfelt ideological beliefs, including jihadi terrorism and mass suicide in cults. If he wants to offer a “single overarching theory” of self-sacrifice, he will need to take seriously the power of belief.

Whitehouse's theory on fusion can explain why suicide terrorists are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their groups, but the following questions on violent extremism remain: (a) Why are victims of suicide terrorism often innocent bystanders? (b) Why do terrorists seem motivated by ancient conflicts? We incorporate findings from the entitativity literature to provide insights into how perceptions of in-groups and out-groups are key processes influencing violent extremism.

Puzzlement about extreme self-sacrifice arises from an unarticulated assumption of psychological egoism, according to which people invariably act in their own self-interests. However, altruism and collective rationality are well established experimentally: people sometimes act to benefit others or in the interests of groups to which they belong. When such social motives are sufficiently strong, extreme self-sacrifice presents no special problem of explanation and does not require out-group threats.

As a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice, Whitehouse's article misses one relevant dimension: people's willingness to fight and die in support of entities not bound by biological markers or ancestral kinship (allyship). We discuss research on moral expansiveness, which highlights individuals’ capacity to self-sacrifice for targets that lie outside traditional in-group markers, including racial out-groups, animals, and the natural environment.

Fitness interdependence is the degree to which two or more organisms influence each other's success in replicating their genes. Identity fusion may be a proximate mechanism that aligns behavior with fitness interdependence. Although identity fusion may usually lead to behaviors that are fitness enhancing, in evolutionarily novel environments, it may be hijacked in ways that are highly detrimental to fitness.

Self-sacrifice can be modeled as a costly social signal carried to the ultimate extreme. Such signaling may be evolutionarily stable if social status is, in part, inherited.