Outsourcing punishment to god: Beliefs in divine control reduce earthly punishment

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volumn 279, Issue 1741, 2012, Pages 3272-3281

  Laurin, Kristin ^a   Shariff, Azim F ^b   Henrich, Joseph ^c   Kay, Aaron C ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITY OF OREGON   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

^d DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Altruistic punishment; Cooperation; Cultural evolution; Punishment; Religion

Indexed keywords

ALTRUISM; COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR; CULTURAL TRADITION; PERCEPTION; RELIGION;

EID: 84863872842     PISSN: 09628452     EISSN: 14712954     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0615     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. 2000 Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. Am. Econ. Rev. 90, 980-994. (doi:10.1257/aer.90.4.980)
2. Gürerk, Ö., Irlenbusch, B. & Rockenbach, B. 2006 The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions. Science 312, 108-111. (doi:10.1126/science.1123633)
3. DeLisi, M., Kosloski, A., Sween, M., Hachmeister, E., Moore, M. & Drury, A. 2010 Murder by numbers: monetary costs imposed by a sample of homicide offenders. J. Foren. Psych. Psych. 21, 501-513. (doi:10.1080/14789940903564388)
4. Norenzayan, A. & Shariff, A. F. 2008 The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science 322, 58-62. (doi:10.1126/science.1158757)
5. Atran, S. & Henrich, J. 2010 The evolution of religion: how cognitive by-products, adaptive learning heuristics, ritual displays, and group competition generate deep commitments to prosocial religions. Biol. Theory 5, 18-30. (doi:10.1162/BIOT_a_00018)
6. Shariff, A. F., Norenzayan, A. & Henrich, J. 2009 In Evolution, culture and the human mind (eds M. Schaller, A. Norenzayan, S. Heine, T. Yamagishi & T. Kameda), pp. 117-136. New York, NY: Taylor-Francis Group.
7. Henrich, N. & Henrich, J. 2007 Why humans cooperate: a cultural and evolutionary explanation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
8. Henrich, J. 2004 Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation. J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 53, 3-35. (doi:10.1016/S0167-2681(03)00094-5)
9. Apicella, C. L., Marlow, F. W., Fowler, J. H. & Christakis, N. A. 2012 Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers. Nature 481, 497-501. (doi:10.1038/nature10736)
10. Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. J. 2003 The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proc. NatlAcad. Sci. USA 100, 3531-3535. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0630 443100)
11. Henrich, J. & Boyd, R. 2001 Why people punish defectors: conformist transmission stabilizes costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. J. Theor. Biol. 208, 79-89. (doi:10.1006/jtbi.2000.2202)
12. Barclay, P. 2006 Reputational benefits for altruistic punishment. Evol. Hum. Behav. 27, 325-344. (doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.01.003)
13. de Quervain, D. J. F., Fischbacher, U., Treyer, V., Schellhammer, M., Schnyder, U., Buck, A. & Fehr, E. 2004 The neural basis of altruistic punishment. Science 305, 1254-1259. (doi:10.1126/science.1100735)
14. McKay, R., Efferson, C., Whitehouse, H. & Fehr, E. 2011 Wrath of God: religious primes and punishment. Proc. R. Soc. B 278, 1858-1863. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2125)
15. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. 2002 Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415, 137-140. (doi:10.1038/415137a)
16. Herrmann, B., Thöni, C. & Gächter, S. 2008 Antisocial punishment across societies. Science 319, 1362-1367. (doi:10.1126/science.1153808)
17. Latané, B., Williams, K. & Harkins, S. 1979 Many hands make light the work: the causes and consequences of social loafing. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 37, 822-832. (doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822)
18. O'Gorman, R., Henrich, J. & van Vugt, M. 2008 Constraining free riding in public good games: designated solitary punishers can sustain human cooperation. Proc. R. Soc. B 276, 323-329. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1082)
19. Johnson, D. D. P. 2011 Why God is the best punisher. Religion Brain Behav. 1, 77-84. (doi:10.1080/2153599X.2011.558714)
20. Alcorta, C. S. & Sosis, R. 2005 Ritual, emotion, and sacred symbols: the evolution of religion as an adaptive complex. Hum. Nat.-Int. Bios. 16, 323-359. (doi:10.1007/s12110-005-1014-3)
21. Atkinson, Q. D. & Whitehouse, H. 2011 The cultural morphospace of ritual form: examining modes of religiosity cross-culturally. Evol. Hum. Behav. 32, 50-62. (doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.09.002)
22. Chudek, M., Heller, S., Birch, S. & Henrich, J. 2012 Prestige-biased cultural learning: bystander's differential attention to potential models influences children's learning. Evol. Hum. Behav. 33, 46-56. (doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.05.005)
23. Henrich, J. 2009 The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion: credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evol. Hum. Behav. 30, 244-260. (doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005)
24. Henrich, J. & Gil-White, F. 2001 The evolution of prestige: freely conferred status as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evol. Hum. Behav. 22, 1-32. (doi:10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00057-X)
25. Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. 2003 Signalling, solidarity, and the sacred: the evolution of religious behavior. Evol. Anthropol. 12, 264-274. (doi:10.1002/evan.10120)
26. Cronk, L. 1994 Evolutionary theories of morality and the manipulative use of signals. Zygon 29, 81-101. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1994.tb00651.x)
27. Ruffle, B. J. & Sosis, R. 2007 Does it pay to pray? Costly ritual and cooperation. B. E. J. Econ. Anal. Pol. 7, 1629.
28. Gervais, W. M., Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. 2011 Do you believe in atheists? Trust and anti-atheist prejudice. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 101, 1189-1206. (doi:10.1037/a0025882)
29. Johnson, D. D. P. 2005 A test of the supernatural punishment hypothesis in 186 world countries. Hum. Nat.-Int. Bios. 16, 410-446. (doi:10.1007/s12110-005-1017-0)
30. Atkinson, Q. D. & Bourrat, P. 2010 Beliefs about God, the afterlife and morality support the role of supernatural policing in human cooperation. Evol. Hum. Behav. 32, 41-49. (doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.07.008)
31. Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. 2011 Mean gods make good people. Int. J. Psychol. Relig. 21, 85-96. (doi:10.1080/10508619.2011.556990)
32. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. 2010 Beyond WEIRD: towards a broad-based behavioral science. Behav. Brain Sci. 33, 111-135. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X10000725)
33. Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., Napier, J. L., Callan, M. J. & Laurin, K. 2008 God and the Government: testing a compensatory control mechanism for the support of external systems. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 95, 18-35. (doi:10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.18)
34. Unnever, J., Cullen, F. & Applegate, B. 2005 Turning the other cheek: reassessing the impact of religion on punitive ideology. Justice Q. 22, 304-339. (doi:10.1080/07418820500089091)
35. Grasmick, H. G., Bursik, R. J. & Kimpel, M. 1991 Protestant fundamentalism and attitudes toward corporal punishment of children. Violence and Victims 6, 283-298.
36. Grasmick, H. G., Morgan, C. S. & Kennedy, M. B. 1992 Support for corporal punishment in the schools: a comparison of the effects of socioeconomic status and religion. Soc. Sci. Quart. 73, 177-187.
37. Randolph-Seng, B. & Nielsen, M. E. 2007 Honesty: one effect of primed religious representations. Int. J. Psychol. Religion 17, 303-315. (doi:10.1080/10508610701572812)
38. Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. 2007 God is watching you: supernatural agent concepts increase prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychol. Sci. 18, 803-809. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01983.x)
39. Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. 2004 Third-party punishment and social norms. Evol. Hum. Behav. 25, 63-87. (doi:10.1016/S1090-5138(04)00005-4)
40. Henrich, J. et al. 2010 Markets, religion, community size and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327, 1480-1484. (doi:10.1126/science.1182238)
41. Saroglou, V., Delpierre, V. & Dernelle, R. 2003 Values and religiosity: a meta-analysis of studies using Schwartz's model. Pers. Indiv. Differ. 37, 721-734. (doi:10.1016/j.paid.2003.10.005)
42. Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L. & Thaler, R. H. 1986 Fairness and the assumptions of economics. J. Bus. 59, S285-S300. (doi:10.1086/296367)
43. Carlsmith, K. M., Darley, J. M. & Robinson, P. H. 2002 Why do we punish? Deterrence and just desserts as motives for punishment. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 83, 284-299. (doi:10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.284)
44. Snarey, J. 1996 The natural environment's impact upon religious ethics: a cross-cultural study. J. Sci. Stud. Religion 35, 85-96. (doi:10.2307/1387077)
45. Roes, F. L. & Raymond, M. 2003 Belief in moralizing gods. Evol. Hum. Behav. 24, 126-135. (doi:10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4)
46. Ginges, J., Hansen, I. G. & Norenzayan, A. 2009 Religion and support for suicide attacks. Psychol. Sci. 20, 224-230. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02270.x)
47. Malka, A. & Soto, C. J. 2011 The conflicting influences of religiosity on attitude toward torture. Pers. Soc. Psychol. B 37, 1091-1103. (doi:10.1177/0146167211406508)
48. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. 2010 The weirdest people in the world? Behav. Brain Sci. 33, 61-135. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X)
49. Wiktionary: Frequency lists. 2011 In Wiktionary. Retrieved from http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title_Wiktionary:Frequency_lists&oldid_13077273
50. Edelman, B. G. 2009 Red light states: who buys online adult entertainment? J. Econ. Perspect. 23, 209-220. (doi:10.1257/jep.23.1.209)
51. Gervais, W. M. & Norenzayan, A. 2012 Like a camera in the sky? Thinking about God increases public self-awareness and socially desirable responding. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 48, 298-302.
52. Malhotra, D. 2010 (When) are religious people nicer? Religious salience and the 'Sunday effect' on pro-social behavior. Judgm. Decis. Mak. 5, 138-143. (doi:10.2139/ssrn.1297275)
53. Paciotti, B., Richerson, P. J., Baum, B., Lubell, M., Waring, T., McElreath, R., Efferson, C. & Edsten, E. 2011 Are religious individuals more generous, trusting, and cooperative? An experimental test of the effect of religion on prosociality. Res. Econ. Anal. 31, 267-305. (doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2011)0000031014)