Folk Theories of Artifact Creation: How Intuitions About Human Labor Influence the Value of Artifacts.

What are the consequences of lay beliefs about how things are made? In this article, we describe a Western folk theory of artifact creation, highlighting how intuitive dualism regarding mental and physical labor (i.e., folk psychology) can lead to the perceived transmission of properties from makers to material artifacts (i.e., folk physics), and affect people's interactions with material artifacts. We show how this folk theory structures the conceptual domain of material artifacts by differentiating the contemporary lay concepts of art/craft and industrial production, and how it influences people's evaluations of different types of artifacts and their makers. We propose that the folk theory and lay concepts of art/craft and industrial production are best understood within a specific sociohistorical context, and review potential sources of cross-cultural and cross-temporal variation. We conclude by making recommendations for future research and examining the implications for promoting environmental sustainability and social justice in production systems.

Shamanism and the social nature of cumulative culture.

Our species-unique capacity for cumulative culture relies on a complex interplay between social and cognitive motivations. Attempting to understand much of human behaviour will be incomplete if one of these motivations is the focus at the expense of the other. Anchored in gene-culture co-evolution theory, we stake a claim for the importance of social drivers in determining why shamans exist.