Supernatural punishment beliefs as cognitively compelling tools of social control

Intuitive moral bias favors the religiously faithful

Belief in powerful supernatural agents that enforce moral norms has been theoretically linked with cooperative altruism and prosociality. Correspondingly, prior research reveals an implicit association between atheism and extreme antisociality (e.g., serial murder). However, findings centered on associations between lack of faith and moral transgression do not directly address the hypothesized conceptual association between religious belief and prosociality. Accordingly, we conducted two pre-registered experiments depicting a "serial helper" to assess biases related to extraordinary helpfulness, mirroring designs depicting a serial killer used in prior cross-cultural work. In both a predominantly religious society (the U.S., Study 1) and a predominantly secular society (New Zealand, Study 2), we successfully replicated previous research linking atheism with transgression, and obtained evidence for a substantially stronger conceptual association between religiosity and virtue. The results suggest that stereotypes linking religiosity with prosociality are both real and global in scale.

Preschoolers' retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice following distributive actions

Prior research provided evidence for retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice in adults, but the developmental origins of judgements of immanent justice remain unknown. Both retrospective and prospective judgements were investigated in preschool age, using explicit and implicit measures. In Experiment 1, 2.5- and 4-year-olds were first shown events in which one agent distributed resources fairly or unfairly, and then they saw test events in which both distributors were damaged by a misfortune. Later, they were presented with a verbal task, in which they had to respond to two questions on evaluation of the deservingness, by using explicit measures. All children were likely to approve of deserved outcomes when deeds and outcomes were congruent (i.e., unfair distributor-misfortune), and only older ones were likely to disapprove when they were incongruent (i.e., fair distributor-misfortune). In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds after seeing familiarization events of Experiment 1, were presented with two verbal questions to explore prospective judgements of immanent justice, by using explicit measures. In Experiment 3, 4-year-olds were first shown familiarization events of Experiment 1 and listened to respective narratives, then before the outcome was revealed they were assessed with a reaching task to investigate prospective judgements of immanent justice, by using implicit measures. Children reached the image depicting a bad outcome for the unfair distributor, and that illustrated a good outcome for the fair distributor. The results of the last two experiments demonstrated a fine ability to make prospective judgements at 4 years of life, and found that they were to be more prone to apply immanent justice reasoning to positive outcomes following good actions. Taken together, these results provide new evidence for preschoolers' retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice.

Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change

Social norms are the glue that holds society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method, we discuss research on norm psychology-the neural and cognitive underpinnings of social norm learning and acquisition. We then overview how norms emerge and spread through intergenerational transmission, social networks, and group-level ecological and historical factors. Next, we discuss multilevel factors that lead norms to persist, change, or erode over time. We also consider cultural mismatches that can arise when a changing environment leads once-beneficial norms to become maladaptive. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions and the implications of norm dynamics for theory and policy.

Adaptive narratives and fantastical falsehoods?

Johnson et al. make a strong case for Conviction Narrative Theory, but it remains unclear why so many adaptive narratives include supernatural causes and other falsehoods. Focusing on religions, I argue that an adaptive decision-making system might include supernatural falsehoods because they simplify complex problems, they are sensitive to long-term incentives, and they evoke strong emotions in a communicative context.

Subjective selection and the evolution of complex culture

Why is culture the way it is? Here I argue that a major force shaping culture is subjective (cultural) selection, or the selective retention of cultural variants that people subjectively perceive as satisfying their goals. I show that people evaluate behaviors and beliefs according to how useful they are, especially for achieving goals. As they adopt and pass on those variants that seem best, they iteratively craft culture into increasingly effective-seeming forms. I argue that this process drives the development of many cumulatively complex cultural products, including effective technology, magic and ritual, aesthetic traditions, and institutions. I show that it can explain cultural dependencies, such as how certain beliefs create corresponding new practices, and I outline how it interacts with other cultural evolutionary processes. Cultural practices everywhere, from spears to shamanism, develop because people subjectively evaluate them to be effective means of satisfying regular goals.

All Models Are Wrong, and Some Are Religious: Supernatural Explanations as Abstract and Useful Falsehoods about Complex Realities

Many cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion argue that supernatural explanations are byproducts of our cognitive adaptations. An influential argument states that our supernatural explanations result from a tendency to generate anthropomorphic explanations, and that this tendency is a byproduct of an error management strategy because agents tend to be associated with especially high fitness costs. We propose instead that anthropomorphic and other supernatural explanations result as features of a broader toolkit of well-designed cognitive adaptations, which are designed for explaining the abstract and causal structure of complex, unobservable, and uncertain phenomena that have substantial impacts on fitness. Specifically, we argue that (1) mental representations about the abstract vs. the supernatural are largely overlapping, if not identical, and (2) when the data-generating processes for scarce and ambiguous observations are complex and opaque, a naive observer can improve a bias-variance trade-off by starting with a simple, underspecified explanation that Western observers readily interpret as "supernatural." We then argue that (3) in many cases, knowledge specialists across cultures offer pragmatic services that involve apparently supernatural explanations, and their clients are frequently willing to pay them in a market for useful and effective services. We propose that at least some ethnographic descriptions of religion might actually reflect ordinary and adaptive responses to novel problems such as illnesses and natural disasters, where knowledge specialists possess and apply the best available explanations about phenomena that would otherwise be completely mysterious and unpredictable.

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Why do many societies moralize apparently harmless pleasures, such as lust, gluttony, alcohol, drugs, and even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, asceticism, sobriety, modesty, and piety as cardinal moral virtues? According to existing theories, this puritanical morality cannot be reduced to concerns for harm and fairness: It must emerge from cognitive systems that did not evolve for cooperation (e.g., disgust-based "purity" concerns). Here, we argue that, despite appearances, puritanical morality is no exception to the cooperative function of moral cognition. It emerges in response to a key feature of cooperation, namely that cooperation is (ultimately) a long-term strategy, requiring (proximately) the self-control of appetites for immediate gratification. Puritanical moralizations condemn behaviors which, although inherently harmless, are perceived as indirectly facilitating uncooperative behaviors, by impairing the self-control required to refrain from cheating. Drinking, drugs, immodest clothing, and unruly music and dance are condemned as stimulating short-term impulses, thus facilitating uncooperative behaviors (e.g., violence, adultery, free-riding). Overindulgence in harmless bodily pleasures (e.g., masturbation, gluttony) is perceived as making people slave to their urges, thus altering abilities to resist future antisocial temptations. Daily self-discipline, ascetic temperance, and pious ritual observance are perceived as cultivating the self-control required to honor prosocial obligations. We review psychological, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting this account. We use this theory to explain the fall of puritanism in western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, and discuss the cultural evolution of puritanical norms. Explaining puritanical norms does not require adding mechanisms unrelated to cooperation in our models of the moral mind.

Men are less religious in more gender-equal countries

Sex differences in religiosity are cross-culturally common and robust, yet it is unclear why sex differences in some cultures are larger than in others. Although women are more religious than men in most countries, religions frequently provide asymmetrical benefits to men at the expense of women. Two global analyses (51 countries and 74 countries) found that country-level gender equality was consistently and negatively associated with religiousness (i.e. religious attendance, reported importance of God and frequency of prayer) for men, more than for women, leading to a larger sex difference in religiousness in more gender-equal countries. Results were especially robust for religious attendance, and hold accounting for country-level wealth, as well as individuals' religious affiliation, the moralization of sexuality, age and education level. We interpret results through a rational choice lens, which assumes that people are more drawn to religion when it is consistent with their reproductive goals.

When instrumental inference hides behind seemingly arbitrary conventions

We review recent evidence that game rules, rules of etiquette, and supernatural beliefs, that the authors see as “ritualistic” conventions, are in fact shaped by instrumental inference. In line with such examples, we contend that cultural practices that may appear, from the outside, to be devoid of instrumental utility, could in fact be selectively acquired and preserved because of their perceived utility.