Collective Responsiveness: A behavioral examination of the relational substrates of norm adherence, social co-ordination and cultural dynamics

Societies depend on norms and rules that guide everyday interactions, yet cooperation and norm adherence vary noticeably across cultures. Explanations usually emphasize values and beliefs, overlooking the behavioral and relational processes that sustain cultural meaning. CORESPOND posits and tests the thesis that a fundamental human system-attachment organization-shapes social norms, cooperation, and coordination. Based on the Biobehavioral Cultural Model of Attachment, CORESPOND proposes that secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment patterns function as reinforcement schedules that scale up to collective behavior. These schedules influence threat responses, norm adherence, and cooperation at group and cultural levels. Recent findings from my lab show that culture-level attachment predicts societal outcomes such as COVID-19 behavioral trajectories, social mindfulness, and norm compliance-over and above cultural value models. CORESPOND will advance this new research frontier through four integrated work packages: Experimental tests of attachment-based trust regulation and norm learning in 4 cultures (WP1), conduct of behavioral studies of attachment behavioral reinforcement schedules and norm learning (WP2) and social coordination games (WP3) in 17 cultures, validating cross-cultural effects with real-world data and assess moderation by socio-ecological threats in 53 cultures (WP4), and using agent-based modelling to simulate cultural dynamics (WP5). By integrating developmental, social, cultural, economic, and evolutionary psychology, and by testing hypotheses across diverse world cultures CORESPOND will deliver the first systematic account of the relational substrates of cultural norms and cooperation. The project will generate new theory, robust cross-cultural datasets, and predictive models vital for tackling global challenges that demand large-scale cooperation.