Sentiments, Respect, and the Evolution of Norm Psychology

Abstract

Social norms are amongst the most theorized and studied phenomena in the human sciences; they are both the descriptive patterns of human social behaviour and the sanctioned expectations that compel individual adherence to such patterns. Yet a unifying account of the psychology of social norm learning and enforcement remains elusive. Recently, evolution-minded scholars have turned to unpacking the black box of "norm psychology". This paper builds on these efforts by extending a novel model of the evolved structure of social affect to consider how social norms may emerge from the uniquely-human sentiment respect--itself a ubiquitous yet undertheorized construct. Respect can be modelled as a sentiment (Gervais & Fessler, 2017)--a functional network of attitudes and emotions including a core attitudinal evaluation of another's efficacy and a set of emotion dispositions (including interest, admiration, guilt, and shame) moderated by that evaluation; the attitude "bookkeeps" partner value and commits one, cognitively and motivationally, to the fitness implications of that evaluation. With this functional design, the capacity for respect may underlay many uniquely-human traits and achievements, including cultural learning and teaching, leadership and followership, prestige, joint intentionality, second-personal morality, generalized trust, and bridged social networks supporting cumulative cultural evolution. The functional structure of respect is arguably the core of human norm psychology. On this account, outgoing vectors of respect condition both norm adherence--whose cultural traits are worth imitating, whose approval is sought, whose judgments can induce shame, and whose expectations are internalized--and norm enforcement, wherein respect is conditioned on others' capacity for respect (their moral efficacy) and lost respect, or contempt, implements exclusion and exploitation of those who are not themselves respectful. As a sentiment coordinating social attention, tolerance, striving, pride, and shame, respect may be precisely the "genetic starter kit" (Heyes, 2024) that makes uniquely-human societies possible.