Normative Processing Needs Multiple Levels of Explanation: From Algorithm to Implementation

Norms are the rules about what is allowed or forbidden by social groups. A key debate for norm psychology is whether these rules arise from mechanisms that are domain-specific and genetically inherited, or domain-general and deployed for many other non-norm processes. Here we argue for the importance of assessing and testing domain-specific and domain-general processes at multiple levels of explanation, from algorithmic (psychological) to implementational (neural). We also critically discuss findings from cognitive neuroscience supporting that social and non-social learning processes, essential for accounts of cultural evolution, can be dissociated at these two levels. This multi-level framework can generate new hypotheses and empirical tests of cultural evolution accounts of norm processing against purely domain-specific nativist alternatives.