Production aids sustain adoption

This proposed mechanism asks why a cultural practice can persist in private after public rewards for performing it disappear. The idea is that people may build reusable, practice-specific aids while rewards are available: a template, shortcut, or arrangement that makes convention A quicker and less error-prone to carry out. A decisive test would keep content, rewards, work time, and visible tools constant while allowing either a reusable A aid or equally costly preparation that cannot be reused. After rewards end, researchers would retain the usable aid, replace it with a visually matched inert version, or provide an aid that makes A and rival convention B equally cheap. Private A use and timed execution could then distinguish durable cost savings from rival explanations.