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This is an accepted manuscript. Please cite as: Fitouchi, L. & Singh, M. (forthcoming) Supernatural
punishment beliefs as cognitively compelling tools of social control. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Supernatural punishment beliefs as cognitively
compelling tools of social control
Léo Fitouchi1* & Manvir Singh2*
1Institut Jean Nicod, Départment d’études cognitives, ENS, Paris, France
2Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse, France
*Corresponding authors: leo.fitouchi@ens.fr, manvir.singh@iast.fr
Abstract: 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
endorse supernatural punishment beliefs to manipulate others into cooperating. Others accept
these beliefs, meanwhile, because they are made compelling by various cognitive biases: They
appear to provide information about why misfortune occurs; they appeal to intuitions about
immanent justice; they contain threatening information; and they allow believers to signal
their trustworthiness. Explaining supernatural beliefs requires considering both motivations to
invest in their endorsement and the reasons others adopt them.
Keywords: cooperation, evolution, immanent justice, misfortune, morality, religion, social
control
In many societies, supernatural agents are believed to reward cooperative behavior and to
punish antisocial actions, such as murder, theft, adultery, or failure to share [1–4**]. We
hereafter refer to such beliefs as (prosocial) supernatural punishment beliefs.
Why are these beliefs so widespread? According to a leading hypothesis, prosocial
supernatural punishment beliefs motivate people to cooperate [5,6], allowing their groups to
outcompete others, thereby fueling their spread in human populations [6]. This account relies
on the premise that religious beliefs promote cooperation enough to substantially influence
evolutionary dynamics—a sometimes contested empirical claim [7*–12].
Here, we focus on how within-group, strategic interactions can produce and sustain
beliefs in moralistic supernatural entities. In particular, we argue that a key factor in the
development of these beliefs is that people subjectively perceive them to be convenient tools
for controlling others’ cooperation in self-serving ways. We begin by reviewing evidence that,
contrary to a common assumption [1,13], beliefs in supernatural punishment are not limited
to large-scale, complex societies. We then propose that they serve as cultural tools for social
control, designed and selectively retained because people perceive them to be useful for
incentivizing others’ cooperation. We finally outline how various psychological biases make
these beliefs compelling enough to be accepted and transmitted.
1. Supernatural punishment beliefs are more widespread than we think
Page 2
Beliefs in the supernatural punishment of free-riding are central to the world religions that
emerged in large, wealthy societies since the first millennium B.C., such as Christianity,
Islam, and “karmic” religions [1,3]. Until recently, cognitive and evolutionary research has
often considered these beliefs to be peculiarities of large-scale, politically stratified, and
economically developed societies [1,6,14].
Recent studies, however, suggest that beliefs in moralizing supernatural agents are
more widespread. Surveying ethnographies, Boehm found evidence of beliefs in supernatural
punishment of antisocial behaviors in at least 12 of 18 forager societies [2]. Watts et al. found
indications of such beliefs in the ethnographies of 37 of 96 Austronesian societies [15]. A
recent study of 2,229 respondents in 15 field sites (e.g., Hadza of Tanzania, Tyva Republic,
Fiji) showed that people are more likely than not to answer that their deity is concerned with
punishing behaviors such as murder, theft, or deceit [16*]. Among the Ik of Uganda, 76.67%
of 60 participants answered that Earth spirits cause trouble to people who do not share with
others [17]. A recent study of the Mentawai horticulturalists (Indonesia) found a widespread
belief that a water spirit Sikameinan attacks people who fail to share meat within their clan
[4**]. Sikameinan brings illness and misfortune to wrongdoers, who then need the help of a
shaman and healing ceremonies to remove the spirit from their house and recover. As
opposed to the “big gods” of world religions, the supernatural enforcers identified in these
studies are neither all-knowing nor all-powerful, and their moral jurisdiction is typically
restricted to a subset of social behaviors, such as meat-sharing or murder [2,4**].
2. The producer side: Supernatural punishment beliefs as tools of social control
Where do prosocial supernatural punishment beliefs come from? Building on research
stressing how individuals’ motivations shape cultural traits [18–23], 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.
2.1. People try to induce others to cooperate
Humans benefit from others’ cooperation. As a result, they exhibit motivations to control
others’ selfishness by monitoring and punishing deviance, provided that such social control is
sufficiently low-cost [24,25]. Examples of such social control include ostracism,
condemnation, and coordinated physical punishment [24–26].
People also craft, tweak, and cumulatively refine cultural tools aimed at inspiring
cooperative behavior in others. They teach and preach moral principles [27]. They narrate
moral tales outlining bad behaviors and their dangerous consequences [28]. They design and
experiment with rules aimed at controlling free-riding, limiting interpersonal conflicts, and
preventing collective action problems, retaining the most effective-seeming [20,29]. We
propose that supernatural punishment beliefs are one of many such cultural tools humans
develop for everyday social control.
Page 3
2.2. People use supernatural beliefs to influence others’ behavior
People use supernatural narratives to influence others’ behavior—including behaviors
unrelated to prosociality. Ethnographers have documented many cases of shamans exploiting
their privileged access to the supernatural to manipulate others. Inuit shamans used their
supernatural authority to demand sexual favors from their clients [30]. Some Shuar shamans
leveraged their apparent powers to escape paying bride-price or engaging in bride-service [31].
Scholars have also noted how rulers of ancient chiefdoms and states crafted supernatural
beliefs designed to consolidate they own power, such as by presenting themselves as the
depositories of powerful gods’ authority [3]. In many societies, taboos appear well designed to
benefit men, elders, and other powerful individuals [20]. For example, menstrual taboos
among the Dogon (Mali) have been shown to function as tools for men to ensure female
sexual fidelity [32]. Given how readily people use supernatural beliefs to influence others, it is
reasonable that they would also use them to induce people to be more cooperative.
2.3. People believe that supernatural punishment beliefs make people more prosocial
Our account assumes that people expect individuals who hold supernatural punishment beliefs
to be more cooperative, a premise that is well-supported. Across 13 religiously diverse
countries, participants judge that religious people are less likely than atheists to commit
immoral acts (e.g., murder) [34]. Survey data indicate that, across 34 countries on 6
continents, a median of 45% of people consider the belief in god as necessary to “be moral and
have good values” [35]. Ethnographic observations are consistent with these results. Among
the Yaghan hunter-gatherers (Tierra del Fuego), informants admitted to using supernatural
punishment beliefs to scare young people not to be lazy free-riders and to live as “good,
Figure 1. 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.
ENDORSE
SUPERNATURAL
PUNISHMENT
BELIEFS
COGNITIVE
APPEAL
(e.g., explains misfortune,
contains threat info, appeals
to fairness intuitions)
STRATEGIC
INCENTIVES
(e.g., controlling others’
cooperation, signaling
trustworthiness)
ADOPT
BELIEFS
STRATEGIC
INCENTIVES
(e.g., controlling others’
cooperation, signaling
trustworthiness)
Page 4
industrious human beings” [36], while Mentawai respondents sometimes spontaneously
suggested that belief in the water spirit Sikameinan causes people to share meat [4**]. Thus,
despite ongoing debate over whether supernatural punishment beliefs actually motivate
cooperation [5,7*,8,10,11,33], converging lines of evidence demonstrate that people believe
that beliefs in moralizing gods make others more cooperative.
2.4. Prosocial supernatural beliefs covary with social control motivations
If prosocial supernatural beliefs serve as tools of social control, people should invest in them
more when they are more motivated to control each other’s behavior. Empirical work supports
this prediction. Participants who experience a breach in trust or are otherwise motivated to
punish norm violators are more likely than controls to endorse punitive religious belief [37**,
38**,39]. At the populational level, “tighter” societies, characterized by a lower tolerance of
deviance and more restrictive norms, are more likely to exhibit beliefs in punitive, moralizing
gods [37**,40]. Beliefs in god and heaven and hell are, across countries, associated with lower
trust in others [7*,9] and with stronger tendencies to condemn uncooperative behaviors and
sexual promiscuity [7*,41,42]. In sum, individuals endorse supernatural punishment beliefs
when they perceive that other people need to be monitored to behave cooperatively. Table 1
lists other predictions for how supernatural punishments should vary across individuals and
populations.
Table 1.
Predictions
1. People should use beliefs in supernatural punishment to control each other’s cooperation.
We thus expect:
1.1. That individuals who desire higher levels of social control are more likely to
promote supernatural punishment beliefs.
1.2. That societies with higher levels of social control, stricter social norms, and greater
disapproval of deviance (i.e., greater “cultural tightness” [38]) are more likely to
exhibit supernatural punishment beliefs.
1.3. That lower trust in others is associated with greater promotion of supernatural
punishment beliefs.
1.4. That supernatural punishment beliefs will target those behaviors people are
motivated to control.
2. People should invest in supernatural punishment beliefs when they perceive an added value
over non-supernatural means of social control. We thus expect:
2.1. That people invest more in supernatural punishment beliefs when their desired
level of social control is harder to achieve by non-supernatural means.
2.2. That supernatural punishment beliefs should preferentially target behaviors that
are difficult to control by non-supernatural means.
3. People should invest in supernatural punishment beliefs as long as they believe that others
will accept them.
4. Supernatural punishment belief should be endorsed as long as people believe them likely to
motivate others’ cooperation, regardless of their objective effectiveness in doing so.
Page 5
3. The recipient side: reasons to adopt and endorse prosocial religious beliefs
There is increasing evidence that humans have evolved cognitive mechanisms of “epistemic
vigilance”, allowing them to evaluate the reliability of communicated information (e.g., by
checking its consistency with prior beliefs) to avoid being manipulated [43*]. Thus, 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).
3.1. Supernatural punishment beliefs offer plausible explanations for misfortune
Explaining and dealing with misfortune is a breeding ground for supernatural beliefs [4,44–
46]. When facing harmful, fitness-consequential life events, such as illness, death or crop
failure, people are motivated to search for plausible explanations that might allow them to
control those events in the future. Many cognitive biases, such as the over-perception of
intentional agents in nature [47] and mentalizing abilities allowing representing minds
without bodies [48], predispose people to believe that misfortune is caused by supernatural
agents [44]. Yet explanations of misfortune can also recruit moral intuitions, providing a lever
for promoting prosocial supernatural beliefs. Psychological research has documented
“immanent justice intuitions”, or the widespread tendency to interpret misfortune as a
retribution for past selfish behavior and good fortune as a reward for prosocial behavior [49–
51]. Researchers argue that these intuitions emerge as by-products of evolved justice intuitions
[1,50], according to which cooperative behaviors make people deserve benefits and
uncooperative behaviors deserve to be punished by bad outcomes [52].
Misfortune-centered supernatural ecologies thus serve as potent opportunities for the
promotion of supernatural punishment beliefs. When a misfortune happens, people consider
different explanations (e.g., having offended a spirit, being attacked by magic) [4**]. Some
individuals can then exploit immanent justice intuitions by promoting moralistic explanations,
casting misfortune as supernatural punishment for previous failures to cooperate.
3.2. Biases favoring threatening information
Another reason supernatural punishment beliefs may overcome epistemic vigilance
mechanisms is that they contain threatening information. Researchers argue that threatening
information can bypass epistemic vigilance because people are often better off accepting the
information than testing its reliability at a potentially dramatic cost [53]. Consistent with this
logic, psychological experiments show that, compared to non-threatening information, people
are more likely to perceive threatening information as plausible [54], more willing to transmit
it [55], and more likely to judge its senders as more competent [56].
3.3. Signaling trustworthiness
People are further motivated to adopt beliefs because of reputational benefits that come from
believing in them. Religious people are trusted more [34]. As a result, individuals who seek
cooperative partners benefit from looking like sincere believers [57]. In line with this logic,
research suggests not only that atheists often hide their lack of belief [58] but also that people
who engage more in reputation-management are more likely to claim to be religious,
especially in environments where religiosity is important [59].
Page 6
4. Conclusions
Unlike previous accounts [6,13], our model is agnostic to whether supernatural punishment
beliefs cause people to behave cooperatively. Many cultural traits, from shamanism [45] to
rain magic [60] to divination [61], remain stable as long as people see them—potentially
wrongly—as useful for achieving their goals [19]. Prosocial supernatural beliefs, we argue, are
no different. People endorse them to motivate others to be cooperative. Their interaction
partners accept these beliefs, meanwhile, because they are cognitively compelling and socially
useful. Supernatural punishment beliefs, like so many cultural products, are shaped by people’s
psychological biases and strategic goals.
Acknowledgments: We thank Jean-Baptiste André, Nicolas Baumard, Theiss Bendixen,
Benjamin Grant Purzycki, Aiyana Willard, and Camille Williams for their helpful feedback
on previous versions of this manuscript. L.F. acknowledges funding by the EUR FrontCog
grant ANR-17-EURE-0017. M.S. acknowledges IAST funding from the French National
Research Agency (ANR) under the Investments for the Future (Investissements d’Avenir)
program, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010.
Page 7
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