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A theory of how evolved psychology underpins attitudes towards societal economics must go beyond exchanges and averages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2018

Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington  and
Lotte Thomsen
Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. [email protected]://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/People/Dr-Jennifer-Sheehy-Skeffington Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Lotte Thomsen
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway. [email protected]://www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/people/aca/lottetho/index.html
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Abstract

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

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e187
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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