Two of the major existential dilemmas in modern life involve the quest for self-understanding and the quest for a meaningful life. People have sought self-knowledge in diverse ways, ranging from psychoanalysis to astrology to psychedelic drugs. Meanwhile, the quest for meaning has also become an increasing focus of individuals. Both selfhood and meaningfulness have become major research areas in psychology as well.
We find Jara-Ettinger and Dunham’s theory of the institutional stance offers exciting possibilities for advancing psychology’s theories about selfhood and meaningfulness. By way of context, our view of the human mind is that it was largely shaped by evolution that selected for traits that facilitate participation in culture (e.g., Baumeister, Reference Baumeister2005). The distinctively human traits are therefore the result of biological adaptations that improve the organism’s ability to participate in and benefit from culture. Definitions of culture vary considerably, but we understand it as shared beliefs and practices that support a social system – presumably one that uses cooperation and communication to prolong life. Haidt (Reference Haidt2012) characterized humans as the “world champions of cooperation,” given that humans cooperate far more extensively and productively than other species. Such productive cooperation has contributed to the biological flourishing of the human species.
Central to that success is the creation of complex social systems. These include economic marketplaces, military organizations, governments, religious groups, corporations, and more. Unlike psychology’s emphasis on the individual and single mind, sociology has sought to understand society from the top down, and in our experience, such analyses often emphasize the various institutions that populate and organize a society. Although many animals have societies (e.g., Moffett, Reference Moffett2018), they do not have anywhere close to the diversity of institutions found in a modern human society: schools, companies, banks, laboratories, mass media, churches, and more. Some animals, such as ants, do have a kind of army, but they lack the command structures that human armies have. Indeed, Moffett et al. (Reference Moffett, Garnier, Eisenhardt, Furr, Warglien, Sartoris, Ocasio, Knudsen, Bach and Offenberg2021) pointed out that ant society, despite its role differentiation and other characteristics, does not have bosses or leaders. To be sure, the aggressive egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer societies (e.g., Boehm, Reference Boehm1999) precluded bosses as well, but the egalitarian innovation fostered collective decision-making based on group discussion, which again is minimal to nonexistent in other species.
The institutional stance is an extremely useful notion for elaborating the view of humans as essentially cultural animals. It may be a vital evolutionary innovation to enable and encourage the mind to search the social world for organized systems and fit oneself into these. The developmental phenomena of overimitation (i.e., mimicking nonessential behaviors alongside causally essential actions) show that, unlike other apes, humans observe others not only to learn about the physical environment but also to learn how things are done in our social group (Tomasello, Reference Tomasello2014).
The historical backgrounds of how the self became problematic and how life’s meaning became problematic are quite different. The self became a problem gradually, over many centuries and in multiple steps (Baumeister, Reference Baumeister1987). Although “know thyself” was engraved in stone at Delphi and has been attributed to multiple different Greek philosophers, it apparently did not have its modern meaning of exploring one’s inner self in the hope of having life’s goals and mysteries revealed from one’s unconscious mind. Rather, it may have been closer to “know your place,” as in knowing one’s role in society and what its duties are. The notion of an institutional stance makes that interpretation highly plausible: People assume there are social structures and seek to fit in to them, and to do that, they must understand their own role(s) along with attendant obligations and expectations. As society became more complex and people took on responsibility for shaping their identities amid multiple opportunities, the essence of one’s self became less a fixed or given property but something more changeable. A major advance was that people began to think of the self as an entity that took on roles, rather than equating the self with its roles (Baumeister, Reference Baumeister1987).
The problematization of life’s meaning was more historically concentrated than the problematization of selfhood. As found by Baumeister and Zhao (Reference Baumeister and Zhao2026), life’s meaning became a problem during the 1800s, consistently across six major Western societies. Why then?
To be sure, there have been turmoil and uncertainty throughout history. Nevertheless, the 1800s arguably posed extraordinary challenges for the institutional stance. For centuries, Western civilization had operated with the framework of Christian faith. Society was assumed to be largely stable (Nisbet, Reference Nisbet1973) based on God’s plan. (As Jara-Ettinger and Dunham make clear, the proto-institutional social structures of animal societies are likewise quite stable, even as different animals take their places in it.) Life’s meaning was understood in that context. But during the early modern period (1500–1800), many long-standing certainties came into question. Secularization, driven in part by religious conflict and scientific advances, undermined the assumption that all humans lay under the obligation to live their life as God had supposedly ordained. Radical political changes undermined the notion that the social system was essentially stable, and indeed, the divine right of kings to rule was vividly undermined when England and France executed their kings, and the upstart United States dispensed with kingship altogether. Communism and anarchism offered radically different views of how society’s institutions could and should function. Industrialization changed the nature and meaning of daily work. Urbanization challenged moral values (as did secularization). Social mobility enabled people to change their position in society, for better or worse.
Thus, the institutional stance directed how people sought to understand themselves and to find meaning in life. As institutions became more complex, allowing more scope for self-determination, selfhood became increasingly problematic. And as institutions shifted and changed, it became more difficult for the institutionally attuned mind to establish the meaning of its life.
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Two of the major existential dilemmas in modern life involve the quest for self-understanding and the quest for a meaningful life. People have sought self-knowledge in diverse ways, ranging from psychoanalysis to astrology to psychedelic drugs. Meanwhile, the quest for meaning has also become an increasing focus of individuals. Both selfhood and meaningfulness have become major research areas in psychology as well.
We find Jara-Ettinger and Dunham’s theory of the institutional stance offers exciting possibilities for advancing psychology’s theories about selfhood and meaningfulness. By way of context, our view of the human mind is that it was largely shaped by evolution that selected for traits that facilitate participation in culture (e.g., Baumeister, Reference Baumeister2005). The distinctively human traits are therefore the result of biological adaptations that improve the organism’s ability to participate in and benefit from culture. Definitions of culture vary considerably, but we understand it as shared beliefs and practices that support a social system – presumably one that uses cooperation and communication to prolong life. Haidt (Reference Haidt2012) characterized humans as the “world champions of cooperation,” given that humans cooperate far more extensively and productively than other species. Such productive cooperation has contributed to the biological flourishing of the human species.
Central to that success is the creation of complex social systems. These include economic marketplaces, military organizations, governments, religious groups, corporations, and more. Unlike psychology’s emphasis on the individual and single mind, sociology has sought to understand society from the top down, and in our experience, such analyses often emphasize the various institutions that populate and organize a society. Although many animals have societies (e.g., Moffett, Reference Moffett2018), they do not have anywhere close to the diversity of institutions found in a modern human society: schools, companies, banks, laboratories, mass media, churches, and more. Some animals, such as ants, do have a kind of army, but they lack the command structures that human armies have. Indeed, Moffett et al. (Reference Moffett, Garnier, Eisenhardt, Furr, Warglien, Sartoris, Ocasio, Knudsen, Bach and Offenberg2021) pointed out that ant society, despite its role differentiation and other characteristics, does not have bosses or leaders. To be sure, the aggressive egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer societies (e.g., Boehm, Reference Boehm1999) precluded bosses as well, but the egalitarian innovation fostered collective decision-making based on group discussion, which again is minimal to nonexistent in other species.
The institutional stance is an extremely useful notion for elaborating the view of humans as essentially cultural animals. It may be a vital evolutionary innovation to enable and encourage the mind to search the social world for organized systems and fit oneself into these. The developmental phenomena of overimitation (i.e., mimicking nonessential behaviors alongside causally essential actions) show that, unlike other apes, humans observe others not only to learn about the physical environment but also to learn how things are done in our social group (Tomasello, Reference Tomasello2014).
The historical backgrounds of how the self became problematic and how life’s meaning became problematic are quite different. The self became a problem gradually, over many centuries and in multiple steps (Baumeister, Reference Baumeister1987). Although “know thyself” was engraved in stone at Delphi and has been attributed to multiple different Greek philosophers, it apparently did not have its modern meaning of exploring one’s inner self in the hope of having life’s goals and mysteries revealed from one’s unconscious mind. Rather, it may have been closer to “know your place,” as in knowing one’s role in society and what its duties are. The notion of an institutional stance makes that interpretation highly plausible: People assume there are social structures and seek to fit in to them, and to do that, they must understand their own role(s) along with attendant obligations and expectations. As society became more complex and people took on responsibility for shaping their identities amid multiple opportunities, the essence of one’s self became less a fixed or given property but something more changeable. A major advance was that people began to think of the self as an entity that took on roles, rather than equating the self with its roles (Baumeister, Reference Baumeister1987).
The problematization of life’s meaning was more historically concentrated than the problematization of selfhood. As found by Baumeister and Zhao (Reference Baumeister and Zhao2026), life’s meaning became a problem during the 1800s, consistently across six major Western societies. Why then?
To be sure, there have been turmoil and uncertainty throughout history. Nevertheless, the 1800s arguably posed extraordinary challenges for the institutional stance. For centuries, Western civilization had operated with the framework of Christian faith. Society was assumed to be largely stable (Nisbet, Reference Nisbet1973) based on God’s plan. (As Jara-Ettinger and Dunham make clear, the proto-institutional social structures of animal societies are likewise quite stable, even as different animals take their places in it.) Life’s meaning was understood in that context. But during the early modern period (1500–1800), many long-standing certainties came into question. Secularization, driven in part by religious conflict and scientific advances, undermined the assumption that all humans lay under the obligation to live their life as God had supposedly ordained. Radical political changes undermined the notion that the social system was essentially stable, and indeed, the divine right of kings to rule was vividly undermined when England and France executed their kings, and the upstart United States dispensed with kingship altogether. Communism and anarchism offered radically different views of how society’s institutions could and should function. Industrialization changed the nature and meaning of daily work. Urbanization challenged moral values (as did secularization). Social mobility enabled people to change their position in society, for better or worse.
Thus, the institutional stance directed how people sought to understand themselves and to find meaning in life. As institutions became more complex, allowing more scope for self-determination, selfhood became increasingly problematic. And as institutions shifted and changed, it became more difficult for the institutionally attuned mind to establish the meaning of its life.
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Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare.