Abstract Chater and Christiansen argue that cultural complexity arises through social “tinkering.” While compelling, this framework remains mechanistically underspecified. Integrating recent empirical and theoretical advances, this commentary proposes that cultural complexity emerges from interactions among transmission dynamics, cognitive constraints, social network structure, and environmental pressures and calls for a formalized, testable multilevel theory.

Abstract Chater and Christiansen propose a 6-stage sequence through which social tinkering drives cultural evolution and cultural complexity. We highlight that people’s selectivity of information uptake from social others and top-down social changes results in variations in social tinkering. We argue that the process of cultural evolution and the path to cultural complexity is less linear than proposed.

Abstract Chater and Christiansen argue that social tinkering is intentionally myopic. I agree. But social tinkering is not motivationally myopic. Evolved motivational systems impact which problems feel urgent and which solutions feel satisfying. These systems are functionally specialized yet often input-flexible. I argue that integrating motivational structure into the social tinkering framework strengthens it.

Abstract How do people understand a social world built from hundreds of interconnected social structures? The commentaries on our proposed answer, the institutional stance, clustered around three questions: (1) What is the conceptual structure within the stance and where does it come from? (2) How does the stance integrate with mentalizing, and to what extent are they separate systems? (3) What changes when we think of people not as observers of social life but as participants in it? The commentaries also highlight new aspects of social cognition we had not considered but which may fall within the stance’s scope. Here we address these questions and challenges, clarify key aspects of our account, and offer friendly amendments and future empirical directions aimed at addressing important challenges raised in the comments.

Abstract Chater and Christiansen claim that humans’ cultural systems arise in an unplanned manner via social tinkering, a process that is nearsighted and directed. However, cultural change can be planned and farsighted, arbitrary and undirected, or anywhere in between. Focusing primarily on social tinkering may cause other important sources of cultural change to be overlooked.

Abstract Jara-Ettinger and Dunham propose that institutional cognition tracks roles and their normative expectations. I argue that decentralized roles lacking formal authority require an additional mechanism to stabilize legitimacy. Sacred values – nonnegotiable commitments that impose costly obligations – function as role-constitutive norms that signal intrinsic devotion, thereby determining legitimate role occupancy and preventing free riding on group identities.

Abstract The concept of social tinkering is useful, but insufficient to explain the evolution of human cultural complexity due to its overemphasis on cooperative interactions. The importance of conflict, violence, and inequality in the evolution of complex cultures complicates the social tinkering hypothesis. Who gets to tinker, and what determines which products of that tinkering are selected?

Abstract Jara-Ettinger and Dunham argue that the institutional stance is used to interpret the behavior of individuals and represent alternative structures. While they focus on roles like barista, they argue that the stance also applies to kinds like race and gender. I argue that there are several differences suggesting this is incorrect, or at least not yet supported by their arguments.

Abstract Dunbar’s framework highlights the challenge of maintaining large, stable social networks given cognitive constraints. Expanding on this, I propose that fractal social networks function as lossy compression algorithms, efficiently reducing the complexity of social storage and retrieval. Rather than tracking all relationships explicitly, individuals rely on hierarchical abstractions and transitive inference, shifting storage complexity from $O\left( {{N^2}} \right)$ to $O\left( {N\log N} \right)$ . This insight suggests broader implications for cognitive evolution, institutional organization, and artificial intelligence.

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