Salience and demotion of goals

Singh’s framework productively emphasizes the emic, cost-benefit perspective that individuals often bring to their choices. However, a significant challenge arises from the vast domain of human behaviors where instrumental ends are opaque or absent. This tension is not new; it resonates with a long-standing distinction in the social sciences, dating back to Max Weber (1922/Reference Weber1978), between instrumentally rational action and actions guided by tradition or value for their own sake.

This classic sociological insight finds modern expression in the cognitive science of religion. Here, rituals are frequently defined by their “goal-demoted” nature, meaning their performance is detached from any obvious practical outcome (Kapitány & Nielsen, Reference Kapitány and Nielsen2019; Legare & Herrmann, Reference Legare and Herrmann2013). Such conventional, non-instrumental actions are considered vital for reinforcing social norms (Rossano, Reference Rossano2012) and scaffolding cumulative cultural evolution (Nielsen, Reference Nielsen2018). More recently, the “bifocal stance theory” proposes that humans flexibly switch between an instrumental stance and a ritual stance when observing actions, depending on contextual cues (Jagiello, Heyes, & Whitehouse, Reference Jagiello, Heyes and Whitehouse2022).

How can Singh’s goal-based framework accommodate these seemingly goal-demoted actions? A productive path forward is not necessarily to posit separate psychological systems but to conceptualize a continuum of instrumental salience. The analytical utility of a framework like the bifocal stance is that it helps us recognize that the perceived purpose of an action is context-dependent and variable. Some cultural practices have high, explicit instrumental salience, while for others, it is low or opaque. The technological innovations central to Rogers’s (Reference Rogers2003) work, which Singh references, exist at the high-salience end of this spectrum. They are often introduced with clear instrumental descriptions (“this seed variant increases yield”), making their adoption amenable to a straightforward subjective selection model based on perceived utility.

In contrast, many traditional cultural practices occupy a different position on this continuum. While some have clear, articulated goals (e.g., performing a ritual to make rain), many others are transmitted with only a vague sense that they are “doing something important.” Often, this is expressed as a precautionary belief: if the practice is not performed in the “right way,” some unspecified misfortune will occur (Hong, Reference Hong2024). Here, it may be said that the operative goal for the individual is not an explicit external outcome, but rather the subordinate goal of correct performance itself. Furthermore, this instrumental salience is not uniform even for a single practice. Within any population, individuals likely vary in the degree to which they perceive a goal, from those who see an action as purely conventional to others who have developed folk theories about its instrumental purpose. A more comprehensive model of subjective selection would therefore be one that incorporates this variation in the salience and nature of goals, both across different cultural practices and among the individuals who perform them.