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Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create by Pascal Boyer

Review

Cezar C. Cioaca

University of Bucharest

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies

Psychology – Cognitive Science (in English), Year 1

Social Cognition

Dr. Radu Umbres

June 12, 2022

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Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create by Pascal Boyer

Review

A masterful body of work by Pascal Boyer which lies at the intersection of psychology,

philosophy, anthropology and economics gives us an authentic look on how social science

should be properly done using insights on culture, society and social institutions emerged from

studying the mind, cognitive mechanics and the dynamics of social interaction between

individuals. Boyer is on a mission to broaden our scope and understanding of social cognition

through a mindful analysis of human evolution, group behaviour and culture.

Boyer starts the book with a series of thought-provoking questions aimed to set the scene

for the world we live in while at the same time giving the reader a nice illustration of the themes

to come in the book, such as: “Could society be just?” ; “Why do people believe so many things

that ain’t so?” ; “Why are people so interested in ethnic identity?” ; “Why are humans so

uncooperative?” . Those are great inquiries, however Boyer does not intend to give a definite,

easy, overarching answer to all of those problems, he actually presents over the course of the

book a brought together hypothesis of the collective social mind in a search for insight, order and

answers. In this way, his book is outlined as a review of advancements in social cognition, and in

doing so systematically disrupting a portion of the mainstream and apparently intuitive lay ideas

regarding social science.

Exactly the same cognitive workings that permit us to associate with others have another

function at the same time, to create abstract intuitions on decision-making possibilities. These

intuitions shape the social dimension for us and in the process tackle issues such as: the nature of

groups, the workings of power relations, the fairness of exchanges, etc. But as much as we as a
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society tend to over index on all of these crazy, vivid, intense, powerful and rather useful

intuitions, they have evolved not into efficiency, as a lot of humanity would like to believe, but

into comfort and convenience.

Both the beginning and the finale of the book elaborate this perspective on sociology as a

remedy to lay intuitions, 5 central chapters present the method at work on specific issues: group

antagonism; the diffusion of false information; the rise of organised, dogmatic religions in state

societies; the uniqueness of human kinship systems; our conflicted perception of market

exchange. Each issue is intended to outline the struggle between our primordial intuitive

comprehension of a social phenomenon and its authentic mechanics, a struggle that breaks down

once the issue is projected in an evolutionary and cognitive medium. In this case Boyer turns his

attention instead to human cognition with a plethora of research studies suggesting a pattern of

zero-sum games between interacting collectives of people that he describes as tribes or tribalism.

In those 5 core chapters, some of the most fascinating ideas are focused around group

behaviour and tribalism. Tribes, operating from a hard-wired perception of scarce resources, are

built to recruit people who support their goals — and preserve said resources.

The author takes the issue of tribal conflicts (e.g. in the Balkan countries or Rwanda) and

intends to unravel the contention mainly by explaining it through the evolution of these 2 social

tendencies: the urge to make one’s own expressions convincing and the instinct to protect one’s

conviction from deception (epistemic vigilance). These tendencies are significant for

collaboration between humans as both collaboration and cooperation require joint endeavours.

To have the capacity to father the help of others, one should be able to persuade the others

regarding the need and worth of the endeavour. One is needed to be able to sniff out malevolent
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intentions, bad apples and the ones intending to profit off the work of others in order to preserve

as much energy and as many assets as possible.

The people who are exiled must make tribes on their own: “Any interaction that

promises to deliver social support for some individuals will lead the others to form their own

network, lest they remain without partners.” Also recruitment requests reimbursement through

support — proof that the individuals will continue to contribute resources, time and energy and

not merely tag along as free riders.

People are moved by a desire to follow, help, and imitate individuals within their tribe,

whom they distinguish through different cues. These perceptions, which generally have a

tendency to develop into negative stereotypes, explain much of what there is to make sense of

the fierce struggle between tribes: we treat people beyond our tribe differently due to the fact that

they appear to be different from the rest. This shifts the focus of interpersonal interactions from

an individualistic, utilitarian perspective towards a rather contextual, strategic and intense

depiction of human cooperation. “Rumours that precede ethnic riots often describe ‘us’ as facing

a terrible and imminent threat,” he writes. “‘They’ might poison us all, kill all the children, burn

down our houses.”

Our brains constantly and unconsciously compute the dangers and opportunities related

with collaboration or struggle with different people, going back to our conscious awareness and

cognitive abilities as a progression of intuitive decisions that we as a whole too easily mistake for

essential and imperative social realities.

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Very much like people have developed biases about group behaviour, they also have

developed previously established inclinations about what a family should be according to Boyer.

Familial penchants fundamentally evolved to defend a child’s development. Kids take much

more time in order to become independent than any other animal offspring. The birth of a child

would cause hormonal differences in both the dads’ and mothers’ bodies but especially the brain

which changes their behaviour in a proper, suitable, sustainable way in order to care for the

development of their offspring.

Boyer additionally talks about a few evolutionary insights on why people find specific

traits of the opposite gender appealing. For instance, ladies are more mindful of signs of societal

position in light of the fact that a higher economic wellbeing empowers a man to be able to better

provide for his child.

Towards the end of the book, Boyer argues, with regards to all the previously discussed

cognitive mechanics turned into intuitions, that these instincts allowed human efficiency and

productivity to increase far beyond small-scale societies. It empowered humans to look past

immediate, small, unreliable returns and actually work together towards a perceived possible

better, grander future for humanity. These advanced instincts of ours, however, also warp our

understanding of the economy in modern societies. Our intuitions function admirably well

indeed when humans can have a certain level of control and at least oversight over society, but

that is practically impossible after societies reach past a certain threshold moment when all of

our advanced cognitive mechanisms and evolved intuitions over hundreds of thousands of years

go out the window entirely and in the process make us jump to the wrong conclusions about the

effects of modern policies like rent, taxes, social benefits, free-market principle, etc etc.
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In conclusion, Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create

is a clear definition of Pascal Boyers’ ambition to pose big questions about social life, and

respond to them through methodical defamiliarization, revealing complex designs underneath the

seemingly obvious. The book is by all means a plea from Boyer to all who are willing to listen to

be more cognizant of evolved social tendencies and intuitions and the impact these cognitive

mechanisms have on all aspects of modern societies and in turn, a better understanding of these

internal workings of the human mind through a social cognitive lens would make us as societies

much much better at coping with the inherent problems they have lead us on and in the end let's

work together to steer away from being so focused on what differentiates us towards a better,

grander, holistic understanding of what humanity has in common and why.