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royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb
Research
Cite this article: Lang M et al. 2019
Moralizing gods, impartiality and religious
parochialism across 15 societies. Proc. R. Soc. B
286: 20190202.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0202
Received: 24 January 2019
Accepted: 11 February 2019
Subject Category:
Behaviour
Subject Areas:
behaviour, evolution
Keywords:
cultural evolution, impartiality, punishing gods,
parochialism, religion, supernatural
punishment
Authors for correspondence:
Martin Lang
e-mail: martinlang@fas.harvard.edu
Benjamin G. Purzycki
e-mail: benjamin_purzycki@eva.mpg.de
Electronic supplementary material is available
online at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.
figshare.c.4413395.
Moralizing gods, impartiality and religious
parochialism across 15 societies
Martin Lang1,2, Benjamin G. Purzycki3, Coren L. Apicella4,
Quentin D. Atkinson5,6, Alexander Bolyanatz7, Emma Cohen8,9,
Carla Handley10, Eva Kundtova
´Klocova
´2, Carolyn Lesorogol11, Sarah Mathew10,
Rita A. McNamara12, Cristina Moya13, Caitlyn D. Placek14, Montserrat Soler15,
Thomas Vardy5, Jonathan L. Weigel16, Aiyana K. Willard17,
Dimitris Xygalatas18, Ara Norenzayan19 and Joseph Henrich1
1
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
2
LEVYNA: Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno 602 00, Czech Republic
3
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
Leipzig 04103, Germany
4
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 6241, USA
5
Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
6
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History,
Jena 07745, Germany
7
Social Science Sub-Division, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137, USA
8
School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, and
9
Wadham College, University of Oxford,
Oxford OX2 6PE, UK
10
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 4101, USA
11
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
12
School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
13
Department of Anthropology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
14
Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, USA
15
Department of Anthropology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA
16
Department of Economics and Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
17
Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University London, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK
18
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
19
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
ML, 0000-0002-2231-1059; BGP, 0000-0002-9595-7360; CLA, 0000-0002-9661-6998;
QDA, 0000-0002-8499-7535; CDP, 0000-0002-5315-5431
The emergence of large-scale cooperation during the Holocene remains a
central problem in the evolutionary literature. One hypothesis points to
culturally evolved beliefs in punishing, interventionist gods that facilitate
the extension of cooperative behaviour toward geographically distant co-
religionists. Furthermore, another hypothesis points to such mechanisms
being constrained to the religious ingroup, possibly at the expense of
religious outgroups. To test these hypotheses, we administered two behav-
ioural experiments and a set of interviews to a sample of 2228 participants
from 15 diverse populations. These populations included foragers,
pastoralists, horticulturalists, and wage labourers, practicing Buddhism,
Christianity, and Hinduism, but also forms of animism and ancestor wor-
ship. Using the Random Allocation Game (RAG) and the Dictator Game
(DG) in which individuals allocated money between themselves, local and
geographically distant co-religionists, and religious outgroups, we found
that higher ratings of gods as monitoring and punishing predicted decreased
local favouritism (RAGs) and increased resource-sharing with distant
co-religionists (DGs). The effects of punishing and monitoring gods on out-
group allocations revealed between-site variability, suggesting that in the
absence of intergroup hostility, moralizing gods may be implicated in coop-
erative behaviour toward outgroups. These results provide support for the
hypothesis that beliefs in monitoring and punitive gods help expand
the circle of sustainable social interaction, and open questions about the
treatment of religious outgroups.
&2019 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Over the last 12 millennia, the scale of human societies has dra-
matically expanded from hunter– gatherer networks involving
a few hundred individuals to vast nation-states involving
millions. Theories explaining the scaling-up of societies have
combined insights about evolved cognition with cultural evol-
utionary models of social norms [1–3], delineating important
roles for markets, kinship systems, marriage institutions, and
religions [4–7]. Focusing on the role of supernatural beliefs, cul-
tural evolution may have favoured the extension of intuitions
about social punishment to beliefs in increasingly intervention-
ist gods who, because of their capacity to monitor and punish
people for violating norms related to interpersonal conduct,
fostered less favouritism toward individuals themselves, their
families, and their communities vis-a
`-vis strangers sharing reli-
gious identities, effectively expanding the cooperative circle [8].
Historically, competition among communities to control
fertile lands dramatically intensified at the onset of the Holo-
cene, favouring larger, sedentary populations capable of
communal defence and various forms of collective action
[9,10]. Although there are ongoing debates about the precise
timing of these historical changes and the nature of the causal
relationships, a combination of archaeological and ethno-
graphic data [11,12] suggests that the scaling-up of societies
was associated with the gradual evolution of religious beliefs
and practices into cultural packages that included more
powerful gods who were increasingly motivated and capable
of monitoring norms favourable to the emergence of large-
scale societies. In particular, analyses of ethnographic data
revealed the centrality of divine punishment in the evolution
of political complexity in the Pacific [13] and robust global
relationships between beliefs in punishing gods and various
indicators of societal scale and complexity [14– 16].
Consistent with these observations, global surveys have
linked a stronger belief in heaven, hell, and punishing gods
with stronger moral disapproval for cheating on taxes,
buying stolen goods, and other such public goods [17], and
a cross-cultural study of market integration revealed robust
correlations between adherence to world religions involving
moralizing deities and prosociality in economic games [6].
Complementing these macro-level patterns, a substantial
body of literature using priming techniques has shown that
among believers, religious reminders can effectively reduce
self-favouritism and increase resource-sharing in economic
games involving strangers [18–21]. Importantly, to experimen-
tally test the role of belief in punishing and monitoring gods in
the expansion of cooperative circle, we previously employed
the Random Allocation Game (RAG) among participants
from eight diverse field sites and found that beliefs in monitor-
ing and punishing gods were associated with less favouritism
toward the self and local communities when playing with
geographically distant co-religionists [8,22].
However, while these initial findings support the hypothesis
of intra-religious impartiality (i.e. extending impartiality to geo-
graphically distant co-religionists), the question as to whether
these beliefs may also favour more equitable treatment of reli-
gious outgroups remains open to study. One cultural group
selection account [23] suggested that parochial cooperation
should be generally favoured (compared to indiscriminate
prosociality and uncooperative selfishness), especially during
thefierceconflictoverresources/values[24,25]becauseitgives
a competitive edge to groups with tight cooperative norms
[26]. While supernaturally sanctioned norms may stabilize
cooperation within a particular religious group (intra-religious
impartiality), other groups may have different normative
regulations and/or not extend their norms to outsiders [27].
Hence, cooperation between groups with different supernatural
commitments is risky and prone to free-riding, predicting
parochialism as a baseline relationship between religious
groups. However, the cultural evolutionary account put forth
by Norenzayan et al. [23] also predicts that in situations where
a more inclusive strategy attracts new recruits and enhances
cooperative networks, group norms may shift toward more uni-
versal application and indiscriminate prosociality to incorporate
the members of religious outgroups if they are not in a direct con-
flict over resources/values [5,28]. To date, evidence appears to be
mixed: some studies showed that participants affiliated with reli-
gions emphasizing universal morality embrace the extension of
cooperation behaviour to outgroup members [20,29– 31] while
other studies indicated that religious participants reveal hostility
toward religious outgroups [32,33].
In this paper, we present data from 2228 participants
sampled in 15 socio-ecologically and religiously diverse
societies (table 1). We aimed to replicate our previous findings
that belief in punishing and monitoring gods helps to curb
local favouritism [8,22] by deploying the same protocol in
additional societies and, moreover, by deploying a different
economic game, namely the Dictator Game (DG). Furthermore,
we aimed to extend the previous research by examining the
outstanding questions about the role of beliefs in punishing
gods in the treatment of religious outgroups. At each site, we
used preliminary ethnographic interviews to select one god
interested in norms of interpersonal conduct and assessed
those gods’ abilities to monitor norm following and punish
transgressions. In line with previous research, we labelled
such gods as ‘moralizing’ [22]; however, note that these gods
need not be a creator or supreme gods and do not need to
care about ‘morality’ as understood in Western philosophy.
Rather, they care about group-specific norms regulating inter-
personal conduct [34,35]. As a comparison, we also selected
locally salient gods on the basis of their being relatively less
concerned with interpersonal conduct, less punitive, and less
knowledgeable than their ‘moralizing’ counterparts (table 1).
We adopted two experimental games, the RAG and the DG,
to measure two distinct facets of cooperative behaviour: curbed
favouritism and impartial resource-sharing. In the RAG, partici-
pants anonymously selected one of two cups designated for
different recipients. They rolled a two-coloured die. If it came
up one colour, participants were supposed to put the coin into
the cup they selected. If the die came up the other colour, partici-
pants were supposed to put the coin into the opposite cup.
Participants repeated this procedure for 30 coin allocations
and understood that all money would be distributed accord-
ingly [36]. Since the allocations were made in private, only the
participants knew their decisions and they could distribute the
endowment according to their preferences (rather than die
rolls), reflecting in- and/or outgroup biases. In the DG, partici-
pants anonymously allocated 10 coins between two recipients
(also designated by cups) based purely on their preferences
[37]. These games have been widely used in cross-cultural
research and benchmarked against relevant real-world beha-
viours [6,36,38–41]. In different ways, these experiments
permit us to assess the relationship between people’s religious
beliefs and their biases in favour of themselves and their
communities.
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
2
Participants played four rounds of either the RAG or the
DG, distributing endowed money between two cups in each
round. To investigate the intra-religious impartiality, two
rounds consisted of contributions to distant co-religionists
versus the self (SELF versus DISTANT) or local co-religionists
(LOCAL versus DISTANT). These two rounds aimed to repli-
cate prior findings that belief in punishing and monitoring
gods promotes expansion of rule following toward DISTANT
co-religionists (RAG); and to assess whether these beliefs are
also associated with increased resource-sharing (DG). The
other two experimental rounds collected data on allocations
to religious outgroups compared to allocations to the self
(SELF versus OUTGROUP) or to distant co-religionists (DIS-
TANT versus OUTGROUP), aiming to assess whether belief
in punishing and monitoring gods promotes indiscriminate
prosociality or whether the cooperative circle is limited only
to religious ingroups (religious parochialism). SELF rep-
resented allocations that participants made to themselves.
LOCAL co-religionist allocations were distributed to ran-
domly selected, anonymous members of the same religion
(associated with the selected moralizing gods) in the camp/
village/town where we conducted experiments. DISTANT
co-religionist allocations were distributed to randomly
selected, anonymous individuals in a geographically distant
village who practice the same religion as LOCALs.
OUTGROUP allocations were distributed to anonymous
members of a different religion in a geographically remote
village (OUTGROUPs were selected such that they were not
in a direct conflict with LOCALs).
Finally, to investigate the causal relationship between
beliefs in moralizing gods and treatment of other groups, we
utilized priming techniques by using locally salient reminders
of (a) punishing and monitoring moralizing gods, (b) relatively
less moralistically punitive and knowledgeable local gods, (c)
secular authorities (e.g. police), and (d) a control condition.
Although previous research has suggested a causal influence
of punishing gods on rule-following and resource-sharing
[21], the use of priming methods has been almost exclusively
limited to Western populations and it is not clear whether
the reported effects extend also to small-scale, non-industrial
societies. By selecting our sites, we aimed to capture a
significant portion of the world’s human diversity while inves-
tigating the individual-level effects of belief in and priming
with moralizing gods. We pre-registered two sets of predic-
tions in the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/
epkbw/) before data analysis:
1. Expanding the cooperative circle to distant co-religionists
(DISTANT games)
Corresponding to the intra-religious impartiality hypothesis,
we predicted that participants who (A) reported higher
ratings of moralizing gods as punitive and monitoring will
show less favouritism toward the SELF and LOCAL co-
religionists when playing with DISTANT co-religionists in
the RAG and DG. Likewise, participants who (B) were
primed with the concept of punitive and monitoring moraliz-
ing gods will show less SELF and LOCAL co-religionist
favouritism compared to the other conditions.
2. Parochial Religious Norm Adherence (OUTGROUP
Games)
According to the religious parochialism hypothesis, allo-
cations in the SELF versus OUTGROUP RAG and DG
should not be influenced by (A) the ratings of, or (B) priming
with, punitive and monitoring moralizing gods. That is, par-
ticipants should bias allocations toward the SELF, irrespective
of their religious belief or treatment conditions due to the
limited scope of religious norms.
Moreover, we predicted that when allocating between DIS-
TANT co-religionists and OUTGROUPs, participants who (C)
reported higher ratings of, or (D) were primed with, punitive
and monitoring moralizing gods will bias their allocations
away from OUTGROUP members and in favour of DISTANT
co-religionists in both the RAG and DG (religious parochialism).
Table 1. Site descriptive statistics.
group country NDISTANT OUTGROUP prime moralizing god local god
Cachoeira Brazil 274 Candomble Evangelical MLSC Christian God Candomble
´God (Ogum)
Coastal Tanna Vanuatu 178 Christian Kastom MLC Christian God Garden spirit (Tupunus)
Hadza Tanzania 201 Hadza Datoga —Haine (Traditional) Ishoko
a
Huatasani Peru 94 Catholic Evangelical MC Christian God Mountain Spirits
Inland Tanna Vanuatu 112 Kastom Christian MC Kalpapan (Traditional) Garden spirit (Tupunus)
Kananga DRC 200 Non-Luluwa Christ. Non-Luluwa MLSC Christian God Kadim/Ancestor spirits
Lovu Fiji 76 Hindu — MC Hindu Bhagwan None available
Marajo
´Brazil 77 Christian — MC Christian God Virgin Mary
Indo-Mauritians Mauritius 245 Hindu Muslim MSC Hindu Shiva Ghost (Nam)
Mysore India 165 Hindu Christian MC Hindu Shiva Chamundeshwari
Samburu Kenya 40 Christ. Samburu Samburu — Christian/Traditional (Nkai) None available
Sursurunga Papua New Guinea 163 Christ. Sursurunga Foreigner MLC Christ. God (Ka
´la
´u) Spirit (Sı
´rma
´t)
Turkana Kenya 247 Christ. Turkana Turkana MLSC Christ. God (Akuj) Ancestor spirits
Tyvans Tyva Republic 81 Buddhist — MC Buddha Burgan Spirit-masters (Cher eezi)
Yasawa Fiji 75 Hindu — MC Christian God Ancestor spirits (Kalou-vu)
a
There are no Ishoko data in Wave II (see electronic supplementary material, section S2.2.3). DRC, Democratic Republic Congo; primes: M, moralizing gods prime; L, local
gods prime; S, secular authority prime; C, control condition. No outgroups were selected for sites taking part only in Wave I (see Material and methods).
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
3
However, we also explored whether participants at Christian
sites (universalistic, proselytizing religion) will taper their
bias against OUTGROUPs by virtue of the aforementioned
propensity to attract new members (indiscriminate prosociality).
2. Material and methods
(a) Participants
During two waves of data collection, we recruited a total of 2228
participants from 15 societies (1126 females; Mage ¼37.0, s.d. ¼
14.8). Specifically, during Wave I, we recruited 591 participants
who played the DISTANT RAGs and reported the results of
this data collection in several publications [8,22]; however, 208
of those participants were contacted again during Wave II to col-
lect the OUTGROUP RAGs. For Wave II, 1637 new participants
were recruited, playing either the DISTANT and OUTGROUP
RAGs or the DISTANT and OUTGROUP DGs (153 participants
played both RAGs and DGs). Here, we collapsed both Wave I
and Wave II samples to provide robust tests of our hypotheses.
We excluded all participants from our analyses whose allo-
cations did not sum to 30 for a particular RAG or 10 for a
particular DG. Specifically, we excluded 30 participants from at
least one RAG and 33 from at least one DG. Furthermore, we
excluded 22 participants who misunderstood the procedure or
did not correctly follow procedural steps. At one site, two research
assistants counterfeited data, thus all the RAG and DG data col-
lected by these assistants were removed (72 participants). The
number of participants in each analysis is displayed under specific
models. While tables in the main text report only full models
(these are missing three sites due to missing some of the covari-
ates), reduced models including all sites can be found in the
electronic supplementary material, section S3. Our protocols
were approved by the University of British Columbia’s Behaviour-
al Research Ethics Board (BREB) and by the equivalent at each
individual researcher’s home university. All subjects provided an
informed verbal consent for participation before the experiment.
(b) Procedures
Participants were recruited by random sampling from a street or
chain sampling, while in smaller communities, researchers ran-
domly sampled households. Upon arrival at a study location,
participants were asked to wait before the experiment in a separate
area to prevent collusion and then entered individually into a room/
tent/or a secluded area to play the RAGs and DGs. Before playing
the games, each participant was given a show-up fee (approximat-
ing 1/4 of one day’s wage), learned about game-specific rules and
had to demonstrate an understanding of those rules. Afterwards,
the participant was left alone to play four rounds of either RAGs
or DGs. Both DGs and RAGs were played in a random order.
After the gameplay was finished, each participant received the
amount contributed to the SELF cups and was escorted into a differ-
ent area for demographic and religiosity interviews where we asked
about moralizing and local gods (see electronic supplementary
material, section S2 for more details on procedure).
(c) Materials
We first conducted ethnographic surveys asking roughly 20 par-
ticipants to list and rank up to five gods and spirits, from which
each site selected one monitoring and punitive god/spirit (here
labelled ‘moralizing’) and one god/spirit less concerned with
the interpersonal aspects of human normative behaviour (here
labelled ‘local’). Confirming our choices of moralizing versus
local gods, the survey showed that the selected moralizing
gods were rated on average as more punitive and monitoring
than local gods (electronic supplementary material, table S3).
To examine the relationship between belief in punitive and moni-
toring gods who care about norm transgressions (i.e. moralizing
gods) and the RAG and DG allocations, we created a punish-
ment–monitoring score by averaging four binary questions
pertaining to the gods’ ability and willingness to punish and
monitor people (for discussion, see electronic supplementary
material, section S2.1.2).
To examine the causal relationship between moralizing gods
and impartiality, we adapted priming materials to the specifici-
ties of local contexts (table 1 for an overview of primed
concepts). Four of our sites (Cachoeira, Mauritius, Sursurunga,
Yasawa) used contextual priming in the RAGs (games were
played inside a temple and a control location) while other sites
used religious/secular imagery printed on a mat/table cloth
(Coastal and Inland Tanna, Kananga, Huatasani, and Mauritius
DG); religious/secular material objects (Cachoeira DG, Lovu,
Marajo
´, Mysore, Turkana, Tyva); or verbal priming (Sursurunga
DG). See electronic supplementary material, sections S2 and S3
for details. Note that in our correlational analyses, we hold the
priming effects constant.
(d) Analyses
In our regression models, we used the punishment– monitoring
score of moralizing gods as well as our treatment conditions as
the main predictors of the RAG and DG allocations, adjusting
for a host of potentially confounding variables. In five modelling
steps, we hold site-membership constant as simple fixed effects
(i.e. mean site allocations), allowing us to make inferences
about the general effect present across our sites while accounting
for an unmeasured between-site variance. Furthermore, we
adjust for potentially competing explanations by holding con-
stant the ratings of moralizing gods’ rewarding abilities, local
gods’ punishment–monitoring score and relationship to local
secular authorities (e.g. police). Apart from these controls, we
also hold constant demographic variables, emotional closeness
to LOCAL, DISTANT, and OUTGROUPS and game-related vari-
ables such as game-order (see electronic supplementary material,
section S3 for details).
3. Results
We observed high between-site variability in mean allo-
cations in the RAG and DG (figure 1). On average, in both
games, participants tended to allocate more coins to the
SELF and to LOCAL co-religionists compared to DISTANT
co-religionists and OUTGROUPs. The allocations were
generally more equitable in the RAG compared to the DG
(despite the greater anonymity in the RAG), indicating that
the rule-following aspect of the RAG played an important
role in participants’ decision-making.
(a) Moralizing gods promote allocations to distant
co-religionists
To replicate our previous findings from Wave I [8,22], we first
analysed the DISTANT RAGs on the sample from both data
collection waves. In line with Wave I, we observed that partici-
pants who rated their moralizing god as more punitive and
monitoring tended to allocate more money to DISTANT co-
religionists. Figure 2 illustrates that going from zero to one in
our punishment–monitoring score was associated with an
increase in the mean allocations to DISTANT co-religionists.
To examine this effect more closely, we regressed RAG
allocations on the punishment–monitoring scores using bino-
mial regression models. In all specifications, the estimated
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
4
punishment –monitoring coefficients were positive, predicting
larger DISTANT allocations: rating moralizing gods as puni-
tive and monitoring increased the chances of allocating a
coin to the DISTANT cup by 26% [95% CI ¼6–49%] in the
SELF versus DISTANT RAG and by 22% [95% CI ¼3 –45%]
in the LOCAL versus DISTANT RAG. Crucially, none of the
key control variables showed stable effects on DISTANT allo-
cations (table 2 and figure 3; electronic supplementary
material, section S3.2 for specific modelling steps and figure
S6 for comparison of Wave I and Wave II).
To extend the RAG results to a different economic game
measuring a distinct facet of intra-religious impartiality, we
included the DISTANT DGs during Wave II. We observed simi-
lar effects of moralizing gods on DISTANT allocations as in the
RAGs (figure 2). Regressing the DISTANT allocations on the
punishment–monitoring measure in a series of five Tobit
models revealed that the punishment–monitoring score was
associated with an increase in participants’ allocations to DIS-
TANT co-religionists. The effects of moralizing gods’ ratings
predicted up to a 1.25 coin increase [95% CI ¼0.25– 2.24] in allo-
cations to DISTANT co-religionists when playing with the SELF,
and up to a 0.89 coin increase [95% CI ¼0.07– 1.70] when play-
ing with LOCAL (maximum allocation was 10 coins). These
results held for various model specifications, and none of our
key controls predicted DISTANT allocations (table 2 and
figure 3; electronic supplementary material, section S3.2 for
specific modelling steps).
To examine whether the effects of punishing gods on be-
haviour can be experimentally manipulated under field
conditions, in some sites (table 1), we randomly assigned par-
ticipants to be primed with either moralizing gods, local
gods, secular authority (the latter in the DG only), or a control
condition. Since we were interested in the strength of effects
of the moralizing gods prime compared to the other con-
ditions, we set the moralizing gods prime as a reference
category for comparisons in our models (note that this
choice does not affect other coefficients of interest; see electronic
supplementary material, S2.1.5).
Cachoeira
Co. Tanna
Hadza
Huatasani
In. Tanna
Kananga
Lovu
Marajo
Mauritius
Mysore
Samburu
Sursurunga
Turkana
Tyv a
Yasawa
01020
cup allocation
DG SELF versus DISTANT DG LOCAL versus DISTANT DG SELF versus OUTGROUP DG DISTANT versus OUTGROUP
RAG SELF versus DISTANT
(a)
(b)
RAG LOCAL versus DISTANT RAG SELF versus OUTGROUP RAG DISTANT versus OUTGROUP
30
0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0
cu
p
allocation
0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0
cu
p
allocation
0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0
cu
p
allocation
0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0
cu
p
allocation
01020
cup allocation
30 0 10 20
cup allocation
30 0 10 20
cup allocation
30
Cachoeira
Co. Tanna
Hadza
Huatasani
In. Tanna
Kananga
Mauritius
Mysore
Sursurunga
Turkana
Figure 1. Density plots of DISTANT co-religionist and OUTGROUP allocations in the RAGs and DGs. (a) Participants allocated 30 coins between two cups in each RAG.
Deviations from the predicted binomial distribution point to biased money allocation. (b) The distribution of participants’ allocations in the DGs revealed more
between-site variability compared to the RAGs. The dashed vertical lines indicate an equitable split between cups (15 in the RAGs and 5 in the DGs). In.
Tanna: Inland Tanna; Co. Tanna: Coastal Tanna. (Online version in colour.)
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
5
We observed priming effects consistent with our hypoth-
eses in the raw data (see electronic supplementary material,
figure S7), although these patterns weakened after accounting
for site fixed effects. Using binomial regression, we did not
observe a difference between the moralizing gods and control
conditions in the RAGs; however, participants in the local
gods condition had odds between 0.85 and 0.89 of allocating
a coin into the DISTANT cups compared to the moralizing
gods condition (electronic supplementary material, table
S16). Similar patterns were observed for the DISTANT DGs:
there were no differences between the moralizing gods and
control conditions but the coefficients of the treatment with
moralizing gods were higher compared to the local gods
and secular authority treatments. While some of these differ-
ences were imprecisely estimated, all the coefficients were in
predicted directions (ranging from a difference of 0.22 to 0.63
coins; electronic supplementary material, table S16). Thus,
these findings offer only tentative support for prediction
#1B and should be interpreted with caution (see electronic
supplementary material, section S3.2 for further discussion).
(b) Varying effects of moralizing gods on allocations
to outgroups
The OUTGROUP games further expanded our Wave I design,
pitting the SELF against an OUTGROUP individual, or a DIS-
TANT co-religionist against an OUTGROUP individual.
Exploring the raw data displayed in figure 2 suggested that
the effects of punishing and monitoring gods on OUTGROUP
allocations are highly variable and may be site dependent. To
test the OUTGROUP hypotheses (indiscriminate prosociality
versus religious parochialism), we used the same set of
regression models as in the DISTANT games.
First, consistent with hypothesis #2A, we observed that the
punishment–monitoring score showed no reliable effect on
players’ contributions to OUTGROUPs in the SELF versus
OUTGROUP RAG (table 2). In the DG, moralizing gods’ pun-
ishment and monitoring was associated with increased
contributions to OUTGROUPs at the players’ expense up to
an increase of 1.23 coins [95% CI ¼0.08–2.39]. However, this
estimate was fairly imprecise and confidence intervals tigh-
tened to exclude zero only when holding the emotional
closeness to and similarity with the OUTGROUP constant,
suggesting that allocations to OUTGROUP members depend
on pre-existing relationships (table 2 and figure 3; electronic
supplementary material, table S19).
Testing whether the punishment –monitoring score is associ-
ated with favouritism toward DISTANT co-religionists at the
expense of OUTGROUPs (hypothesis #2C), the results from
both the DISTANT versus OUTGROUP RAG and DG revealed
variable effects of the punishment–monitoring score. The gen-
eral coefficients were in predicted directions, indicating that
the punishment –monitoring score was associated with the
odds of 0.9 [95% CI ¼0.66– 1.24] of allocation to the OUT-
GROUP cup in the RAG and with 0.33 [95% CI ¼21.20 –0.54]
lower coin allocations in the DG. However, the confidence inter-
vals suggested high between-site variation (table 2 and figure 3).
Breaking down the variation by the type of moralizing gods’ reli-
gion at each site (Christian versus Other) suggested that the
absence of the main effect may be explained by the fact that at
Christian sites, gods’ punishment –monitoring score was on
average associated with higher allocations to OUTGROUPs,
while the reverse applied to the other sites (see electronic
supplementary material, section S3.3 for discussion).
Regarding experimental manipulation in the OUTGROUP
games, we employed the same priming techniques as in the
DISTANT games (see electronic supplementary material,
figure S10). For the SELF versus OUTGROUP RAG, we com-
pared a control condition with the moralizing gods treatment,
observing the odds ratio of 0.91 [95% CI ¼0.84–0.99] for
0
0.0–0.3
0.7–1.0
0.3–0.7
0.0–0.3
0.7–1.0
0.3–0.7
0.0–0.3
0.7–1.0
0.3–0.7
0.0–0.3
0.7–1.0
0.3–0.7
510
MG punishment–monitoring
15 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 5 10 15 20 0246810
0 5 10 15 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 5 10 15 20 0246810
DISTANT allocation OUTGROUP allocation
LOCAL versus DISTANT RAG LOCAL versus DISTANT DG DISTANT versus OUTGROUP RAG DISTANT versus OUTGROUP DG
SELF versus DISTANT RAG SELF versus DISTANT DG SELF versus OUTGROUP RAG SELF versus OUTGROUP DG
Figure 2. Positive effects of moralizing gods (MGs) on DISTANT allocations and varying effects on OUTGROUP allocations. Displayed are raw means with 95% CI and
density plots; dashed vertical lines indicate the moralizing gods’ effect. These effects are illustrative only because we collapsed the punishment–monitoring score
into three instead of five categories for easier reading: 0.0– 0.3, 0.3–0.7, 0.7–1.0. These plots also do not take into account between-site differences and
distributional assumptions (table 2 for specific estimates). Note that the number of participants in each level of the MG Pun–Mon variable substantially differs
(with MG Pun– Mon ¼1 having the most and MG Pun– Mon ¼0 the least participants); see electronic supplementary material, figure S2. (Online version in colour.)
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
6
Table 2. Coefficients and 95% confidence intervals from binomial and Tobit regressions estimating allocations to the DISTANT/OUTGROUP cups. Abbreviated results from full models. OR, odds ratio (exponentiated coefficients) from
binomial regression; b-Est., beta estimate from Tobit regression; MG, moralizing gods; LG, local gods; Pun– Mon, punishment –monitoring. The full models hold constant site-specific mean allocations, treatment, age, sex, number of
children, household size, material insecurity, emotional closeness and practice similarity to local and distant co-religionists and to outgroup, and police evaluation. Site means are modelled as simple fixed effects with Mysore as the
reference category (see electronic supplementary material, section S3.1). Note that these models exclude three sites due to the lack of local god beliefs (Hadza, Lovu, and Samburu). Reduced models including all sites are displayed in
electronic supplementary material, tables S7–S10 and S17 – S20 (Model 2).
DISTANT games OUTGROUP games
random allocation game dictator game random allocation game dictator game
SELF versus
DISTANT
LOCAL versus
DISTANT
SELF versus
DISTANT
LOCAL versus
DISTANT
SELF versus
OUTGROUP
DISTANT versus
OUTGROUP
SELF versus
OUTGROUP
DISTANT versus
OUTGROUP
OR OR b-Est. b-Est. OR OR b-Est. b-Est.
MG pun–
mon
1.26** 1.22* 1.25* 0.89* 1.08 0.90 1.23* 20.33
(1.06, 1.49) (1.03, 1.45) (0.25, 2.24) (0.07, 1.70) (0.79, 1.49) (0.66, 1.24) (0.08, 2.39) (21.20, 0.54)
LG pun–
mon
1.07 0.99 0.57 20.04 0.76* 1.18 20.05 20.37
(0.94, 1.21) (0.87, 1.12) (20.13, 1.28) (20.62, 0.54) (0.61, 0.94) (0.94, 1.47) (20.88, 0.79) (21.00, 0.25)
MG reward 0.98 0.96 20.49 20.27 0.88 1.14 20.34 0.03
(0.86, 1.11) (0.84, 1.09) (21.13, 0.15) (20.80, 0.25) (0.73, 1.06) (0.94, 1.38) (21.05, 0.37) (20.50, 0.57)
police 1.03
#
1.00 0.01 20.08 1.01 1.02 0.02 20.06
(1.00, 1.07) (0.97, 1.04) (20.16, 0.17) (20.22, 0.05) (0.96, 1.06) (0.97, 1.07) (20.17, 0.21) (20.20, 0.08)
constant 0.81* 0.94 4.43*** 3.54*** 1.30 0.94 2.65*** 4.75***
(0.66, 0.98) (0.77, 1.15) (3.24, 5.62) (2.50, 4.58) (0.94, 1.79) (0.68, 1.29) (1.29, 4.02) (3.71, 5.79)
Npeople 602 598 802 792 261 255 636 630
Nsites 12 12 9 9 7 7 8 8
#
p,0.1; *p,0.05; **p,0.01; ***p,0.001.
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
7
allocations to OUTGROUPs in the control condition compared
to the moralizing gods treatment (electronic supplementary
material, table S24). In the SELF versus OUTGROUP DG, we
added treatments with local gods and local secular authority,
observing that the moralizing gods treatment predicted an
increase of 0.36 coins [95% CI ¼20.06–0.79] compared to
the control condition, 0.68 coins [95% CI ¼0.21–1.14] com-
pared to the local gods treatment and 0.75 coins [95% CI ¼
0.20–1.31] compared to the secular authority treatment (elec-
tronic supplementary material, table S24). For the DISTANT
versus OUTGROUP games, there were no differences between
the moralizing gods and control conditions in the RAG and
only weak negative differences between the moralizing gods
and other treatments in the DG. In sum, the priming results
in the OUTGROUP games do not provide support for our
predictions (#2B and #2D) and suggest that priming may
instead promote indiscriminate prosociality in the SELF
versus OUTGROUP games (see electronic supplementary
material, section S3.3 for discussion).
4. Discussion
Through four iterations of both the RAG and the DG, as well
as a priming battery, we examined the effects of beliefs
related to supernatural monitoring and punishment on the
impartial treatment of various receivers. Adjusting for a
host of potentially confounding factors, our results show
that higher ratings of moralizing gods as punitive and moni-
toring were associated with larger allocations to DISTANT
co-religionists when playing with both the SELF and
LOCAL co-religionists in the RAGs and DGs, supporting
the intra-religious impartiality hypothesis. The experimental
priming with moralizing gods typically produced larger con-
tributions to DISTANT co-religionists compared to the
treatments with local gods and secular authority, but not
compared to the control condition. The lack of difference
between the moralizing gods and control conditions resulted
from the fact that the majority of participants committed to
moralizing gods played close to 50/50 split in the control
condition, hence the primes had low variation to act upon
(in both the DG and RAG, giving half of the endowment is
generally the ceiling on allocations to strangers [6,36]).
These findings support the idea that the cultural evolution
of supernatural agents into punishing and monitoring gods
who care about interpersonal, normative conduct may have
played a role in the extension of the cooperative circle
beyond kin-networks and local ingroup interests. In small-
scale societies, supernatural agents are often confined to
local ecologies where they may promote parochial cooperation
by demanding collective activities [42,43]. However, because
some local gods are tied to a specific place, they do not necess-
arily provide an overarching identity for geographically
distant communities and are not as interested in normative
conduct of anonymous members of different communities
([5]; see also electronic supplementary material, table S3). In
line with this proposition, our correlational results showed
that belief in moralizing—but not local—gods reduced local
favouritism. Moreover, in the analyses of the priming con-
ditions, the average allocations to DISTANT co-religionists
across all the games were smaller in the local gods treatment
compared to the moralizing gods treatment.
The negligible effects of another key control variable—the
reward ratings of moralizing gods—suggest that it is
specifically the belief in the punishing and monitoring (not
rewarding) aspects of supernatural agents that promote
higher DISTANT allocations [44]. Similarly, a different body
of literature has suggested that in some cultural and historical
circumstances, secular institutions may outcompete the
policing functions provided by belief in punishing and moni-
toring gods [45,46]. Again, our results in the DISTANT RAGs
and DGs hold even when controlling for a relationship to
local secular authority in this particular sample. Consistent
with this finding, the secular authority prime led to lower
allocations to DISTANT co-religionists compared to the mor-
alizing gods prime in the DGs, although confidence intervals
for these estimates were quite wide, suggesting considerable
variability for which we have not accounted.
The cultural evolutionary approach developed above
further suggests that the increased impartiality shown
toward DISTANT co-religionists in the RAG and DG should
not necessarily extend to religious outgroups (religious paro-
chialism; prediction #2A). Indeed, while self-favouritism was
constrained by commitments to moralizing gods in the SELF
versus DISTANT RAG (above), the punishment– monitoring
0.6
SELF-DIST
LOC-DIST
SELF-OUTG
DIST-OUTG
0.8 1.0 1.3 1.7 –2.5 –1.0 0
estimateodds ratio
moralizing gods RAG moralizing gods DG
1.0 2.5
Figure 3. Moralizing gods’ punishment–monitoring regression coefficients with 95% CI. Rating moralizing gods as monitoring and punishing predicted larger
allocations to the DISTANT co-religionist cups when playing with both SELF and LOCAL co-religionist. The same rating did not predict allocations to the OUTGROUP
cups in the SELF versus OUTGROUP RAG; however, we observed a positive effect in the SELF versus OUTGROUP DG. The coefficients for the DISTANT versus OUTGROUP
RAG and DG were in predicted directions but exhibited between-site variability. X-axis for the RAG is on the logistic scale. (Online version in colour.)
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc. B 286: 20190202
8
score did not play a role in curbing self-favouritism when play-
ing the RAG with OUTGROUP. This result points to the
parochial effects of moralizing gods, who may be concerned
with normative conduct toward co-religionists but not necess-
arily toward outgroups. The result of SELF versus
OUTGROUP DG was more complicated. In this DG, we
observed a positive correlation between punishment– moni-
toring ratings and allocations to OUTGROUPs; however,
this coefficient was not robust across different model specifi-
cations and only emerged as significant at conventional levels
when both people’s relationship with, and similarity to, the
OUTGROUP were held constant (cf. [47]). This relationship
suggests that when groups are sufficiently similar and main-
tain prior favourable relationships, belief in punishing and
monitoring gods may deter extremely selfish treatment of
outgroup members in the DG (i.e. zero allocations; see elec-
tronic supplementary material, section S3.3 for discussion).
In line with this interpretation, priming moralizing gods
increased OUTGROUP allocations in both the SELF versus
OUTGROUP RAG and DG compared to the control condition
(but never raised them above the 50/50 split).
Finally, we hypothesized that individuals would make a
distinction between DISTANT co-religionists and OUT-
GROUPs (#2C), promoting the competitiveness of one’s own
religious group by increasing allocations to DISTANT co-reli-
gionists at the expense of OUTGROUPs. While the
coefficients in both the RAG and DG were in the predicted
direction, the confidence intervals of those effects suggested
considerable between-site variability. We explored a hypothesis
stating that in the absence of intergroup hostility (as shown by
our OUTGROUP emotional closeness measure, see electronic
supplementary material, table S4), religions appealing to uni-
versal norms—which may ultimately foster proselytizing—
would put emphasis on indiscriminate prosociality manifested
in higher OUTGROUP allocations. Our supplemental analyses
indeed suggest opposite trends in allocation to OUTGROUPs
at Christian versus non-Christian sites; however, caution
should be exercised in interpreting these results as we would
need larger samples and other religions with a universalistic
appeal for precise estimates of this effect (see electronic
supplementary material, section S3.3 for further discussion).
While deploying our experiments across cultures, we also
encountered limitations to our multi-site experimental approach.
Our main measure (punishment– monitoring abilities)exhibited
low variation at some sites where the maximum value possible
was also the modal score. This may have been an artefact of
our pre-selection of gods that were specifically concerned with
human interpersonal normative conduct, but more nuanced
measurements of participants’ beliefs should improve future
estimates. Furthermore, while we attempted to define DISTANT
co-religionists and OUTGROUPs solely along religious lines,
some sites—due to facts on the ground—had to merge ethnicity
and religion when defining recipient groups (see electronic sup-
plementary material for more details and additional analyses).
We attempted to adjust our models for different OUTGROUP
relationships but future research should obtain detailed esti-
mates of interaction frequency, cooperative exchange, and
conflict history. This applies to other types of culturally evolved
groupings such as markets or political institutions (for details see
[48]). Finally, adapting priming techniques to fit the specific con-
text at each site yielded substantial variability in those
techniques, possibly hindering the general estimates of the prim-
ing effects. These effects might have also been confounded by the
fact that our design necessitated the use of religious reminders on
cup labels, possibly subtly primin g all participants (see electronic
supplementary material, section S3.2.4 for discussion).
Despite these limitations, the current work used a larger
and more culturally diverse sample to support our previous
findings regarding the role of moralizing gods in expanding
the social circle [8,22] and replicated these findings in a
new experiment (the Dictator Game) while also revealing ten-
tative support for our predictions using the priming
technique in the field. Extending our experimental paradigm
to investigate religious parochialism, we observed little or no
support for our outgroup predictions; however, exploratory
analyses suggested new lines of theoretical and empirical
work. Taken together, this study investigated a particular cul-
turally evolved mechanism that may have contributed to the
expansion of human societies and illustrates one interdisci-
plinary approach for moving beyond narrow sampling
strategies and harnessing the planet’s rich human diversity
to shed light on key questions of cultural evolution.
Data accessibility. The dataset used for the current analyses together with
protocols, hypotheses and R code can be found at the Open Science
Framework (https://osf.io/epkbw/).
Authors’ contributions. J.H., A.N., and B.G.P. conceived the study, pre-
pared protocols, and managed data collection. C.L.A., Q.D.A., A.B.,
E.C., E.K.K., C.H., C.L, S.M., R.A.M., C.M., C.P., B.G.P, M.S., T.V.,
J.L.W., A.K.W., and D.X. collected data. M.L. and B.G.P. managed
the dataset and team communication, and M.L. conducted all analyses
and made all graphs and tables. M.L., J.H., B.G.P., and A.N. drafted the
paper. All authors provided input on methods and the manuscript.
Competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding. Weacknowledge funding froma researchgrant, ‘The Emergence
of Prosocial Religions’ from the John Templeton Foundation, and the
Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC), funded
by a generouspartnershipgrant (895-2011-1009) from the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada. C.H. and S.M. were
funded by the John Templeton Foundation grant no. 48952.
Acknowledgements. We are thankful to all our participants and research
assistants. Furthermore, we would like to thank Adam Barnett, Heidi
Colleran, Cammie Curtin, Duncan Sibbard Hawkes, Radek Kundt,
Ibrahim Mabulla, Peter Man
ˇo, and Gilbert Topos for helping in
various stages of this project.
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