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Strategic incentives and cognitive biases stabilize supernatural punishment beliefs in a population (here schematized as two individuals). Producers have strategic motivations to endorse supernatural punishment beliefs. Recipients accept the beliefs because of their cognitive appeal and are themselves motivated by strategic incentives to further endorse them.
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Why do humans develop beliefs in supernatural entities that punish uncooperative behaviors? Leading hypotheses maintain that these beliefs are widespread because they facilitate cooperation, allowing their groups to outcompete others in inter-group competition. Focusing on within-group interactions, we present a model in which people strategically...
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... on research stressing how individuals' motivations shape cultural traits [18][19][20][21][22][23], we argue that a key factor in the evolution of prosocial supernatural beliefs is the production and promotion of supernatural narratives that appear effective for motivating others' cooperation. For example, by promoting beliefs that "failure to share brings deadly illness", or that "adultery is punished by God", people may (not necessarily consciously) attempt to deter others' selfishness ( Figure 1). Table 1 outlines testable predictions of this model. ...
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... if prosocial religious beliefs emerge as people attempt to manipulate others into cooperating, these beliefs must bypass espitemic vigilance. Below, we outline how cognitive biases and strategic incentives predispose people to accept prosocial supernatural beliefs (Figure 1). ...
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... on research stressing how individuals' motivations shape cultural traits [18e23], we argue that a key factor in the evolution of prosocial supernatural beliefs is the production and promotion of supernatural narratives that appear effective for motivating others' cooperation. For example, by promoting beliefs that 'failure to share brings deadly illness' or that 'adultery is punished by God,' people may (not necessarily consciously) attempt to deter others' selfishness ( Figure 1). Table 1 outlines testable predictions of this model. ...
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... if prosocial religious beliefs emerge as people attempt to manipulate others into cooperating, these beliefs must bypass epistemic vigilance mechanisms. In the following, we outline how cognitive biases and strategic incentives predispose people to accept prosocial supernatural beliefs (Figure 1). ...
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Citations
... He predicted that under an acute threat of moral instability, the relationship between morality and the gods will become explicit. This particular hypothesis-call it the cooperative threat hypothesis-suggests that the content of gods' concerns emerge in response to socially uncertain contexts as a means to influence others' behaviour (see Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Fitouchi, Singh, André, & Baumard, n.d.). That is, to influence others, one must explicitly convey appeals. ...
The relationship between religion and morality has been a steadfast topic of inquiry since the dawn of the social sciences. Researchers have expended considerable effort addressing questions such as how widespread this relationship is and what aspects of religion contribute to "moral" behaviour. This Element probes these questions and how the social sciences have addressed them by detailing how theory and method have evolved over the past few generations. It shows that much of our current knowledge about this relationship has been significantly shaped by our cultural history as a field. By critically examining the tools and theories specifically developed to answer questions about the evolution of morality, society, and the gods, it argues that-given the role religious beliefs and practices play on our social lives-the relationship between religion and morality is, despite considerable diversity in form, quite common around the world.
... Individuals, however, do not only have truth-seeking motives when evaluating new information: their judgment and communication is also influenced by strategic, social goals (Kunda, 1990), such as signalling commitments to causes and fitting in moral communities (Kahan 2011(Kahan , 2016Williams, 2023;Tetlock, 2002;Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018), and trying to influence other people to increase their investment in causes that benefit the agent or the community (Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Marie & Petersen, 2022;Kurzban et al., 2010;Pinsof, Sears & Haselton, 2023;Tetlock, 2002 In parallel, we expected potential sex differences in evaluations of research documenting sex-based hiring discrimination against women in academia to be largely explained by differences in MCGE. Indeed, Handley et al.'s (2015) observation that men tend to judge evidence of hiring discrimination against women less positively than women might be largely reducible to men being on average lower in MCGE than women due to differences in personal experiences. ...
Exploring what modulates people's trust in evidence of hiring discrimination is crucial to the deployment of corrective policies. Here, we explore one powerful source of variation in such judgments: moral commitment to gender equality (MCGE), that is, perceptions of the issue as a moral imperative and as identity‐defining. Across seven experiments (N = 3579), we examined folk evaluations of scientific reports of hiring discrimination in academia. Participants who were more morally committed to gender equality were more likely to trust rigorous, experimental evidence of gender discrimination against women. This association between moral commitment and research evaluations was not reducible to prior beliefs, and largely explained a sex difference in people's evaluations on the issue. On a darker note, however, MCGE was associated with increased chances of fallaciously inferring discrimination against women from contradictory evidence. Overall, our results suggest that moral convictions amplify people's myside bias, bringing about both benefits and costs in the public consumption of science.
... Belief in supernatural agents that monitor and enforce moral conduct is broadly associated with prosociality 1-3 , including inclinations to punish those who fail to cooperate 4,5 , theoretically reinforcing prosocial tendencies. Religious doctrines often include prosocial rules 6,7 that provide consistent and enforceable community norms regarding equitable behavior and expectations of mutual aid from others, including co-religionist strangers 8,9 . ...
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.
... Of course, not all religious goals are centered around reproduction. People can similarly engage with religion as a tool to encourage others to be cooperative Fitouchi & Singh, 2022) or to fulfill any host of practical benefits throughout one's life (Reynolds & Tanner, 1995). Religions often must compete for adherents, and they typically do this by tailoring their services to cater to people's real needs (Seabright, forthcoming). ...
What do we gain from the scientific study of religion? One possibility is that religious contexts are unique, and cognition within these contexts is worth understanding. Another possibility is that religion can be viewed as a laboratory for understanding psychology and culture more broadly. Rather than limiting the study of religion to a single context, I argue that the study of religion is useful precisely because it illuminates secular psychological and cultural processes. I first outline my practical approach to psychology and religion, focusing on how people use religion to advance mundane goals. I then discuss several domains in which studying religion has led to important insights, including culture, prejudice, and cognition. This article is an extended version of an Early Career Award address given at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion meeting in 2023 in Groningen, Netherlands.
... Observers who invoke karmic punishments may also gain reputational benefits by signalling their commitment to moral standards, without suffering the personal costs and social friction that arise from interpersonal punishment. Furthermore, culturally-endorsed reminders of supernatural punishment is effective at deterring selfish behaviour (White, Kelly, Shariff, & Norenzayan, 2019), meaning that supernatural sanctions may be effective tools to ensure cooperative behaviour and deter future transgressions, even in the absence of direct, interpersonal punishment (see Fitouchi & Singh, 2022). ...
Punishment and the threat thereof can enforce social norms by deterring inappropriate behaviours and future misdeeds, but enacting punishment can be costly. As a result, individuals may prefer to outsource costly punishment to others and cultural institutions. We propose that shared beliefs about supernatural punishment, might contribute to minimizing the costs of interpersonal punishment by allowing people to outsource this punishment to supernatural entities. We specifically test in a pre-registered experiment (N = 1603 American and Singaporean adults) whether thinking about karma (a supernatural force that punishes misdeeds) reduces punishment. Results confirm that being prompted to consider karma reduces inclinations to punish selfishness in a Third Party Punishment Game. These findings suggest that karma beliefs may have played a role in the cultural evolution of human cooperation by reducing the costs of human norm enforcement while maintaining incentives for prosocial behaviour through the threat of supernatural punishment.
... Belief in supernatural agents that monitor and enforce moral conduct is broadly associated with prosociality [1,2,3], including inclinations to punish those who fail to cooperate [4,5], theoretically reinforcing prosocial tendencies. Religious doctrines often include prosocial rules [6,7] that provide consistent and enforceable community norms regarding equitable behavior and expectations of mutual aid from others, including co-religionist strangers [8,9]. ...
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 an intuitive conceptual association between religiosity and prosociality is both real and global in scale.
... Concerning the origins of immanent justice beliefs in the ontogeny, two different theoretical proposals coexist. Some researchers consider the immanent justice beliefs as a product of culture and learning mechanisms, so children adopt beliefs or narratives by learning the beliefs of adults (Bering & Parker, 2006;Cornelius et al., 2011;Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Harris, 2012;Legare et al., 2012;Legare & Harris, 2016;Weinberger et al., 2020). Other researchers support an early-emerging moral core (Hamlin, 2013; for a review see Woo et al., 2022), and pre-existing principles, such as the fairness principle (Geraci, 2022;Graham et al., 2013;Ting et al., 2020), which enable infants to evaluate others' together, these results provide new evidence for preschoolers' retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice. ...
... What is the origin of immanent justice in ontogeny? Partially, these findings could be explained in terms of acquisition by considering preschoolers' judgements of immanent justice as a product of culture and learning mechanisms (Bering & Parker, 2006;Cornelius et al., 2011;Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Harris, 2012;Legare et al., 2012;Legare & Harris, 2016;Weinberger et al., 2020). It is well-documented that children acquire immanent justice reasoning because they are encouraged by parents or socialcommunicative practices (Raman & Winer, 2002, 2004. ...
... Furthermore, the present study also adds to the current evidence on a well-equipped moral core (Woo et al., 2022) by demonstrating that 4-year-old children can make both retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice. Hardly, the current results could be explained by the view according to which the immanent justice beliefs as a product of culture and learning mechanisms (Bering & Parker, 2006;Cornelius et al., 2011;Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Harris, 2012;Legare et al., 2012;Legare & Harris, 2016;Weinberger et al., 2020). This explanation does raise questions about how it might apply to young children's retrospective and prospective judgements of immanent justice. ...
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.
... Yet, it also anticipated that beliefs about gods' concerns were best framed as appeals to other people (cf. Cronk, 1994;Fitouchi & Singh, 2022) that bring attention to threats in sociality rather than catchy concepts or motivations driving behavior. This too has been supported cross-culturally (Bendixen et al., 2023, in press;Purzycki, 2011). ...
... Accordingly, several researchers have recently called for a rethinking of the relationship between religion and cooperation in cultural evolution Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Jacquet et al., 2021;Kavanagh et al., 2020;Saroglou & Craninx, 2021). In what follows, we propose a model which, although compatible with the possibility that prosocial religions might promote cooperation, does not require this premise to explain their cultural evolution. ...
... They emerge from a dynamic of mutual policing, in which each individual, lacking confidence in the spontaneous cooperation of conspecifics, attempts to incentivize their cooperation by endorsing beliefs in supernatural punishment (Figure 1). A key point here is that people do not passively acquire religious beliefs from others, but rather actively use and shape religious traditions to advance their fitness-interests (Boyer, 2022;Fitouchi & Singh, 2022;Micheletti et al., 2022;Moon et al., 2019;Moon, 2021;Moon et al., 2022). Take how people used supernatural explanations of misfortune strategically in a village of Central Serbia (Jerotijević, 2015). ...
What explains the ubiquity and cultural success of prosocial religions? Leading accounts argue that prosocial religions evolved because they help societies grow and promote group cooperation. Yet recent evidence suggests that prosocial religious beliefs are not limited to large societies and might not have strong effects on cooperation. Here, we propose that prosocial religions, including beliefs in moralizing gods, develop because individuals shape supernatural beliefs to achieve their goals in within-group, strategic interactions. People have a fitness interest in controlling others' cooperation-either to extort benefits from others or to gain reputational benefits for protecting the public good. Moreover, they intuitively infer that other people could be deterred from cheating if they feared supernatural punishment. Thus, people endorse supernatural punishment beliefs to manipulate others into cooperating. Prosocial religions emerge from a dynamic of mutual monitoring, in which each individual, lacking confidence in the cooperativeness of conspecifics, attempts to incentivize their cooperation by endorsing beliefs in supernatural punishment. We show how variants of this incentive structure explain the variety of cultural attractors towards which supernatural punishment converges-including extractive religions that extort benefits from exploited individuals, prosocial religions geared toward mutual benefit, and moralized forms of prosocial religion where belief in moralizing gods is itself a moral duty. We review cross-disciplinary evidence for nine predictions of this account and use it to explain the decline of prosocial religions in modern societies. Prosocial religious beliefs seem endorsed as long as people believe them necessary to ensure other people's cooperation, regardless of their objective effectiveness in doing so.
... Rather than enumerating and weighing all the possibilities, many societies use narratives to evoke salient fears that effectively keep others from harm's way (e.g., "avoid the forest at night because monsters lurk in there") (Morin & Sobchuk, 2022;Sugiyama, Sugiyama, Slingerland, & Collard, 2011). Supernatural punishment is an especially common and effective tool for motivating cooperative behavior because it presents decision-makers with a distressing imagined future for breaking the rules (Bendixen & Purzycki, 2017;Fitouchi & Singh, 2021). Indeed, supernatural appeals across cultures are not about random subject matter; they are usually about locally important socioecological challenges like resource management and cooperative conflicts (Bendixen et al., 2021;Purzycki, Bendixen, Lightner, & Sosis, 2022). ...
Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) is conceptually so multifaceted as to make critical evaluation difficult. It also omits one course of action: Active engagement with the world. Parsing the developmental and mechanistic processes within CNT would allow for a rigorous research programme to put the account under test. I propose a unifying account based on active inference.
