As Bard, Keller, and Leavens show, attachment theory does not account for the diversity of child-rearing practices around the world. However, the entrenched commitment to Bowlby’s idea that the attachment system is a biological adaptation prevents attachment researchers from fully understanding the import of such diversity. I argue that this idea relies on a static and flawed view of evolution.

Childhood is a cultural project with shared goals, constant adaptation, and struggle; child well-being requires the engaged participation of a child in the cultural activities deemed desirable in that community. The evidence and conceptual frame of this paper show the remarkable varieties of childhoods and cultural contexts found around the world, which affect attachment and shared intention/coordinated joint engagement theories.

Inclusive global theories of child development require local researchers who spearhead research within their own communities. This means creating pathways for researchers from underrepresented contexts to lead projects, define priorities, and collaborate as equal partners, rather than merely act as data collectors. This capacity-building holds the promise of generating more accurate and equitable developmental science research.

We were pleased to read the comments on our target article expressing views from diverse disciplines, including biology, philosophy, psychiatry, anthropology, and numerous branches of psychology (i.e., developmental, cultural, evolutionary, and comparative psychology). In this response, we discuss their ideas about routes to increasing inclusivity in theories of developmental psychology and present our disagreements with the few who argue that there is no need for change to theories. We highlight the commentators’ broad agreement with the main themes of the WILD (Worldwide, In situ, Local, & Diverse) approach and the practical guide of 5 Steps to Inclusivity, and we consolidate commentators’ views on infrastructural changes that are necessary to reach our collective goal of increasing inclusivity in theories of developmental psychology.

Human societies consistently develop complex, near-universal traditions that exhibit striking similarities. These “super-attractors” span magic and religion (e.g., shamanism, supernatural punishment beliefs), esthetics (e.g., heroic tales, dance songs), and social institutions (e.g., justice, corporate groups), and collectively constitute the “cultural manifold.” Here, I argue that the components of the cultural manifold develop primarily through “subjective selection,” or the production and selective retention of variants evaluated as useful for satisfying goals. Whereas previous explanations emphasize objective individual or group-level benefits, I highlight how subjective selection drives complex cultural convergences worldwide, attesting to the importance of subjective selection in shaping human culture.

Western punitive justice systems persist despite weak evidence that they reduce crime. We argue that they function as WEIRD cultural superstitions: punishment intuitively feels effective even when it fails. Drawing on Singh’s framework, historical evidence of punishment’s dominance origins, and our own experiments, we show how subjective selection sustains maladaptive punitive institutions – ultimately raising the question, intuitively effective to whom?

Singh’s account explains cultural super-attractors via subjective selection. I extend it to healing rituals and dietary practices, including fasting calendars, sacred or taboo foods, detox narratives, probiotic beliefs, and ceremonial eating. I map these packages to complexity and robustness, specify control-seeking and hedonic mechanisms, derive testable predictions, and outline cross-cultural studies that distinguish satisfaction from objective efficacy for public health.

This commentary welcomes Singh’s shift from dual inheritance to individual psychology but argues that his model remains incomplete without evolutionary foundations. Cultural variants are not adopted merely because they appear useful – they appeal to evolved motivational systems shaped by natural selection. Integrating adaptive goals, producer–consumer dynamics, and ecological variation transforms subjective selection into a genuinely evolutionary-ecological framework.

We praise many aspects of this paper that bring forward previously underemphasized content. We would caution against presenting it as an alternative group-level selection. Indeed, subjective selection may serve to generate a mechanistic understanding of the underlying system upon which group selection operates. Such an approach would address the circularity in the supposition that subjective selection explains cultural patterns.

A merit of the subjective selection framework is to focus on individuals’ motivations in shaping cultural trends. To gain explanatory strength, the model should be completed with a proper assessment of the role of natural selection. In contrast to some formulations in the target article, natural selection shapes not just organisms’ overall goals in “selecting” cultural materials but also the detailed mechanisms whereby they assess and produce cultural material.

Singh convincingly argues that understanding culture requires understanding subjective selection. Here, I (1) suggest an extension to Singh’s cultural manifold, namely status signaling systems and (2) argue that Singh’s approach might unfold its greatest impact on the study of modern culture and economics. Indeed, subjective selection seems to readily predict numerous modern phenomena such as highly addictive digital interfaces.

Extending Singh’s theory of cultural “super-attractors,” this commentary examines the Intensive Care Unit as a living model of the cultural manifold. In this high-acuity clinical environment, patients, families, and clinicians unconsciously reconstruct cultural super-attractors through ritual, cooperation, and shared humanitarian goals. Integrating psychiatric consultation reveals how these attractors transform unconscious adaptation into structured healing and recovery.

Singh compellingly describes some psychological factors that shape selection of cultural variants, but his approach gives insufficient attention to how culture shapes psychology. We argue the subjective selection account needs to pay greater attention to the psychological nuances of goal pursuit, cultural shaping of both perceived and “actual” effectiveness, and importance of social consensus cues.

Singh’s framework of subjective selection compellingly links individual cognition to cultural convergence. My commentary emphasizes that subjective selection is hierarchically mediated: not all individuals have equal capacity to shape or transmit their evaluations. Hierarchies of influence, authority, and interdependence determine whose perceptions are amplified into cultural traditions. Accounting for inequality and social power clarifies how the cultural manifold reflects both shared psychology and the unequal distribution of influence within human societies.

We are sympathetic to Singh’s argument for ascribing a central role to agency within cultural evolution. In our opinion, however, his account oversimplifies the relation between agents and their environments, treating goals merely as internal cognitive states. Work in cognitive ethnography reveals that goals emerge in interaction with, and are constrained by, physical and social features of the environment.

Language exemplifies Singh’s super-attractor concept while testing the explanatory limits of subjective selection, which is just one of the processes of cultural evolution. Subjective selection explains many linguistic features through speakers’ instrumental goals. However, other types of processes also shape language evolution: some, related to learning and perception, for instance, will not involve intentions or conscious selection. Others involve intentionally creating and transforming linguistic constructions rather than merely selecting them from random mutations.

The field of cultural evolution has long emphasized forms of social learning where learners are “blind” to payoffs of cultural traits, while neglecting “sighted” processes like guided variation. We review new insights that could inform psychologically enriched models of social learning. These insights reveal new ways that blindness creeps into selection, even when agents appraise the payoffs of cultural traits.

Singh sees cultural convergence as people choosing traditions that seem to work well in practice. I build on this by looking at symbolic super attractors, like ancestor worship or cosmic diagrams. These can last for a long time since they fit human ways of thinking and give people a sense of deeper grounding. Unlike practical choices, which are judged by how effective they are, symbolic ones are valued for how well they make sense and hold together. Recognizing both sides gives a clearer picture of how cultures form and endure.

Singh’s model accounts for cultural convergence but not moral progress. Historical expansions in moral status and the decline of cruel punishment constitute principled departures from parochial utility optimization. Empathy, reflective override, and institutional scaffolding support such breakthroughs. Moral progress therefore functions as a counter-attractor dynamic that enables systematic divergence from utility-based equilibria and requires explanatory resources beyond subjective selection alone.

Singh’s notion of subjective selection is ambiguous between (i) the subjective selections of individual agents, and (ii) a form of cultural selection that ranges across populations. His notion of super-attraction is also ambiguous: it spells out a target for explanation, but also suggests a hypothesis for how these phenomena should be explained.