Boyer & Petersen (B&P) do a masterful job of identifying a suite of folk-economic beliefs that, though at odds with economic theory, have far-reaching consequences for politics and policy. As psychologists, we applaud the project of providing an evolutionary account that encompasses a rich empirical literature on habits of mind, and that boldly projects their implications for important societal issues. At the same time, distal (evolutionary) accounts require proximate mechanisms for behaviors to be transmitted and learned (Tomasello Reference Tomasello1999). We therefore use this commentary as an opportunity to explore how B&P's evolutionary approach might inform, and be informed by, a developmental perspective. To illustrate, we focus on emporiophobia – the disproval of market-based (utility-maximizing) exchanges – and we turn to young children, as their intuitions and understanding of the world bear on questions of origins.
One key task children face is learning how to interact with others. B&P convincingly argue that individuals seek cooperative partners who can engage in long-term, repeated exchanges. On this account, humans are built for small-scale, local transactions, which are at odds with the utility-maximizing nature of market exchanges. (By “market,” B&P seem to mean a large-scale system involving many actors who are unknown to one another, such as the stock market or the housing market.) Although the contrast between small-scale transactions and market transactions is striking, it is unclear how people come to intuit that “markets are bad.” What are the cognitive capacities serving local, familiar, small-scale market interactions that, when scaled-up, yield emporiophobia?
Three developmental possibilities emerge as likely candidates: (1) Children could initially be suspicious of utility maximizing, which, when scaled up, results in a negative view of markets. This would be consistent with children's early-emerging altruism (Warneken Reference Warneken2018, attention to personal affiliations in resource allocations (Olson & Spelke Reference Olson and Spelke2008), and in-group favoritism (Baron et al. Reference Baron, Pun, Dunham, Barner, Baron, Barner and Baron2016). (2) In contrast, children could start out as utility maximizers and only later learn to consider extrinsic (social) exchange motives (Fehr et al. Reference Fehr, Bernhard and Rockenbach2008). Consequently, utility maximizing could be viewed as childish, selfish, and morally suspect, even in adulthood. (3) Finally, from the outset, children could possess dual perspectives on exchange motives (at times maximizing, at times altruistic) and over time they could acquire culturally specific norms regarding what is appropriate in different contexts (i.e., markets have their time and place; Blake et al. Reference Blake, Corbit, Callaghan and Warneken2016; McAuliffe et al. Reference McAuliffe, Raihani and Dunham2017).
We incline to the third possibility. As noted above, children are sometimes altruistic and motivated by affiliation, but they are sometimes “selfish” maximizers. In our own work, we find evidence for both motives. When children of ages 5–10 were asked to distribute resources to those who either did or did not offer money in exchange, their distributions followed market principles (i.e., resources were distributed differentially based on the amount offered in return) – except when recipients were unable to pay, in which case the youngest children were especially likely to give away resources without compensation (Echelbarger et al. Reference Echelbarger, Gelman and Kalish2018). Similarly, Rizzo and colleagues found that children accept market-based distributions for luxuries but not necessities (Rizzo et al. Reference Rizzo, Elenbaas, Cooley and Killen2016). Thus, even young children have access to different frameworks for thinking about market norms, and flexibly treat them both positively and negatively.
What, then, are the consequences for the origins of emporiophobia? At minimum, these findings suggest the importance of examining the practices, contexts, and messages that children receive from others. If young children really are working out their local cultural norms for when market exchanges are appropriate, then we would expect them to make mistakes. Sometimes children will maximize self-interest when a market perspective is not appropriate, but sometimes they will make the opposite error – they will act altruistically when they “ought” to adopt more of a market perspective. Both sorts of errors leave children vulnerable – to censure or exploitation, respectively. Hence, parents may intervene to enforce norms of sharing and reciprocity (Lollis et al. Reference Lollis, Van Engen, Burns, Nowack and Ross1999), to shield children from markets, and to shield children from those with whom they could engage in market exchanges (i.e., strangers). When interacting with friends and family – the most common context for young children – children may be praised for engaging in non-market behavior and censured for engaging in market behavior. The end result may be to reinforce the notion that “markets are bad,” or at least that “being a maximizer is childish.”
In general, then, although children eventually learn that, economically speaking, it is advantageous to maximize utility in market exchange contexts, we suspect they are also getting the message that doing so with friends and family (close affiliative partners) is particularly problematic. Under this interpretation, we propose that markets actually serve as opportunities to engage more safely with strangers – that is, “emporiophobia” creeps in when exchanging with familiar partners whereas “emporiophilia” takes over when exchanging with strangers. Current work, to our knowledge, cannot directly shed light on whether children modulate their opinions of market-based exchanges depending on the context. Thus, future work should examine the conditions under which children think markets are “good” and “bad” (see Fiske [Reference Fiske1991] for one model by which we could evaluate how people track the utility of market-based exchanges).
In conclusion, we argue that the seeds of emporiophobia may be planted by experiences learning appropriate exchange norms in childhood. Adults may retain notions of immaturity (selfishness) and danger (interacting with strangers) when operating in market exchanges. However, we propose that in certain contexts – particularly those involving strangers – market-based behaviors may be viewed more positively, yielding emporiophilia. As well as learning not to be selfish, young children also have to learn that self-interest is an appropriate basis for social interaction. Such experiences should result in positive feelings about (certain kinds of) markets. Taken together, future work should examine the emergence and developmental course of these attitudes, keeping in mind the evolutionary antecedents and consequences of harboring emporiophobic and emporiophilic beliefs.
Boyer & Petersen (B&P) do a masterful job of identifying a suite of folk-economic beliefs that, though at odds with economic theory, have far-reaching consequences for politics and policy. As psychologists, we applaud the project of providing an evolutionary account that encompasses a rich empirical literature on habits of mind, and that boldly projects their implications for important societal issues. At the same time, distal (evolutionary) accounts require proximate mechanisms for behaviors to be transmitted and learned (Tomasello Reference Tomasello1999). We therefore use this commentary as an opportunity to explore how B&P's evolutionary approach might inform, and be informed by, a developmental perspective. To illustrate, we focus on emporiophobia – the disproval of market-based (utility-maximizing) exchanges – and we turn to young children, as their intuitions and understanding of the world bear on questions of origins.
One key task children face is learning how to interact with others. B&P convincingly argue that individuals seek cooperative partners who can engage in long-term, repeated exchanges. On this account, humans are built for small-scale, local transactions, which are at odds with the utility-maximizing nature of market exchanges. (By “market,” B&P seem to mean a large-scale system involving many actors who are unknown to one another, such as the stock market or the housing market.) Although the contrast between small-scale transactions and market transactions is striking, it is unclear how people come to intuit that “markets are bad.” What are the cognitive capacities serving local, familiar, small-scale market interactions that, when scaled-up, yield emporiophobia?
Three developmental possibilities emerge as likely candidates: (1) Children could initially be suspicious of utility maximizing, which, when scaled up, results in a negative view of markets. This would be consistent with children's early-emerging altruism (Warneken Reference Warneken2018, attention to personal affiliations in resource allocations (Olson & Spelke Reference Olson and Spelke2008), and in-group favoritism (Baron et al. Reference Baron, Pun, Dunham, Barner, Baron, Barner and Baron2016). (2) In contrast, children could start out as utility maximizers and only later learn to consider extrinsic (social) exchange motives (Fehr et al. Reference Fehr, Bernhard and Rockenbach2008). Consequently, utility maximizing could be viewed as childish, selfish, and morally suspect, even in adulthood. (3) Finally, from the outset, children could possess dual perspectives on exchange motives (at times maximizing, at times altruistic) and over time they could acquire culturally specific norms regarding what is appropriate in different contexts (i.e., markets have their time and place; Blake et al. Reference Blake, Corbit, Callaghan and Warneken2016; McAuliffe et al. Reference McAuliffe, Raihani and Dunham2017).
We incline to the third possibility. As noted above, children are sometimes altruistic and motivated by affiliation, but they are sometimes “selfish” maximizers. In our own work, we find evidence for both motives. When children of ages 5–10 were asked to distribute resources to those who either did or did not offer money in exchange, their distributions followed market principles (i.e., resources were distributed differentially based on the amount offered in return) – except when recipients were unable to pay, in which case the youngest children were especially likely to give away resources without compensation (Echelbarger et al. Reference Echelbarger, Gelman and Kalish2018). Similarly, Rizzo and colleagues found that children accept market-based distributions for luxuries but not necessities (Rizzo et al. Reference Rizzo, Elenbaas, Cooley and Killen2016). Thus, even young children have access to different frameworks for thinking about market norms, and flexibly treat them both positively and negatively.
What, then, are the consequences for the origins of emporiophobia? At minimum, these findings suggest the importance of examining the practices, contexts, and messages that children receive from others. If young children really are working out their local cultural norms for when market exchanges are appropriate, then we would expect them to make mistakes. Sometimes children will maximize self-interest when a market perspective is not appropriate, but sometimes they will make the opposite error – they will act altruistically when they “ought” to adopt more of a market perspective. Both sorts of errors leave children vulnerable – to censure or exploitation, respectively. Hence, parents may intervene to enforce norms of sharing and reciprocity (Lollis et al. Reference Lollis, Van Engen, Burns, Nowack and Ross1999), to shield children from markets, and to shield children from those with whom they could engage in market exchanges (i.e., strangers). When interacting with friends and family – the most common context for young children – children may be praised for engaging in non-market behavior and censured for engaging in market behavior. The end result may be to reinforce the notion that “markets are bad,” or at least that “being a maximizer is childish.”
In general, then, although children eventually learn that, economically speaking, it is advantageous to maximize utility in market exchange contexts, we suspect they are also getting the message that doing so with friends and family (close affiliative partners) is particularly problematic. Under this interpretation, we propose that markets actually serve as opportunities to engage more safely with strangers – that is, “emporiophobia” creeps in when exchanging with familiar partners whereas “emporiophilia” takes over when exchanging with strangers. Current work, to our knowledge, cannot directly shed light on whether children modulate their opinions of market-based exchanges depending on the context. Thus, future work should examine the conditions under which children think markets are “good” and “bad” (see Fiske [Reference Fiske1991] for one model by which we could evaluate how people track the utility of market-based exchanges).
In conclusion, we argue that the seeds of emporiophobia may be planted by experiences learning appropriate exchange norms in childhood. Adults may retain notions of immaturity (selfishness) and danger (interacting with strangers) when operating in market exchanges. However, we propose that in certain contexts – particularly those involving strangers – market-based behaviors may be viewed more positively, yielding emporiophilia. As well as learning not to be selfish, young children also have to learn that self-interest is an appropriate basis for social interaction. Such experiences should result in positive feelings about (certain kinds of) markets. Taken together, future work should examine the emergence and developmental course of these attitudes, keeping in mind the evolutionary antecedents and consequences of harboring emporiophobic and emporiophilic beliefs.