The Evolution of Religion and Morality

Volume II

Martin Lang, Benjamin Grant Purzycki, Joseph Henrich, Ara Norenzayan, Martin Lang, Benjamin Grant Purzycki, Joseph Henrich, Ara Norenzayan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032624075
• eBook ISBN: 9781003827184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Evolutionary Psychology

This volume draws on a unique dataset to answer pressing questions about human religiosity. Building upon the first volume in this series, it presents results from the second phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) project.

The second volume investigates key questions in the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion and highlights cultural variability and context specificity of diverse religious systems. Chapters draw on a dataset comprising 2, 228 participants from 15 ethnographically diverse societies that stretch from Africa and India through Oceania to South America, and include hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, subsistence farmers and wage laborers. Four chapters using the full dataset answer the following questions:

• What are the general predictors of commitment to supernatural agents?
• Is there a gender gap in religiosity?
• Does belief in punitive gods facilitates cooperation?
• Are supernatural agents implicitly associated with moral concerns?

Chapters from individual field sites further explore the distinction between moralizing and local gods, the potentially disruptive role of belief in local gods on cooperation with anonymous co-religionists, and the relationship between belief in moralizing gods, cooperation, and differential access to material resources. Above these empirical studies, the book also includes an informed discussion with specialists on the challenges of running such a large cross-cultural project and gives concrete recommendations for future projects.

The Evolution of Religion and Morality: Volume II will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, human evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introducing a special issue on phase two of the Evolution of Religion and Morality project
• 1 Material insecurity predicts greater commitment to moralistic and less commitment to local deities: a cross-cultural investigation
• 2 The religiosity gender gap in 14 diverse societies
• 3 The moralization bias of gods’ minds: a cross-cultural test
• 4 When god is watching: dictator game results from the Sursurunga of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
• 5 Moralistic and local god beliefs and the extent of prosocial preferences on Tanna Island, Vanuatu
• 6 Moralizing gods, local gods, and complexity in Hindu god concepts: evidence from South India
• 7 Cigarettes for the dead: effects of sorcery beliefs on parochial prosociality in Mauritius
• 8 Perceptions of moralizing agents and cooperative behavior in Northeastern Brazil
• 9 Prosociality and Pentecostalism in the D.R. Congo
• 10 Do religious and market-based institutions promote cooperation in Hadza hunter-gatherers?
• 11 The Evolution of Religion and Morality project: reflections and looking ahead
• 12 Cultural lessons missed and learnt about religion and culture
• 13 Two questions for the cultural evolutionary science of religion
• 14 Big comparison
• 15 Depth vs. breadth: lessons from the Evolution of Religion and Morality project
• 16 The Evolution of Religion and Morality project: some modest reservations
• 17 Guiding the evolution of the evolutionary sciences of religion: a discussion
• Index