The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance

Frontiers Collection

Volumn Part F950, Issue , 2009, Pages 243-256

  Purzycki, Benjamin Grant ^a   Sosis, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

Author keywords

Cognitive Flexibility; Religious Belief; Religious Idea; Religious System; Stated Belief

Indexed keywords

EID: 85071876662     PISSN: 16123018     EISSN: 21976619     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-00128-4_17     Document Type: Chapter

References (66)

1. Alcorta C S, Sosis R (2005) Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols. Human Nature 16(4):323–359
2. Atran S (2002) In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford University Press, Oxford
3. Balikci A (1970) The Netsilik Eskimo. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights
4. Baron-Cohen S (1995) Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. The MIT Press, Cambridge
5. Barrett J L (2007) Is the spell really broken? Bio-psychological explanations of religion and theistic belief. Theology and Science 5(1):51–72
6. Barrett J L (1998) Theological correctness: Cognitive constraint and the study of religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11:325–339
7. Bering J M (2004) Natural selection is non-denominational: Why evolutionary models of religion should be more concerned with behavior than concepts. Evolution and Cognition 10:126–137
8. Bering J M, McLeod K A, Shackelford T K (2005) Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. Human Nature 16:360–381
9. Berndt R M (1972) The Walmadjeri and Gugadja. In: Bicchieri M, Holt G (eds) Hunters and Gatherers Today: A Socioeconomic Study of Eleven Such Cultures in the Twentieth Century. Rinehard and Winston, New York
10. Boyd R, Richerson P J (1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
11. Boyer P (2001) Religion Explained: Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. Basic Books, New York
12. Boyer P, Ramble C (2001) Cognitive templates for religious concepts: cross-cultural evidence for recall of counter-intuitive representations. Cognitive Science 25(4):535–564
13. Bulbulia J (2004) The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion. Biology and Philosophy 18:655–686
14. Bulbulia J, Sosis R, Harris E, Genet C, Genet R, Wyman K (2008) (eds) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Collins Foundation Press, Santa Margarita, CA
15. Chagnon N A (1996) The Yanomamo, 5th edn. Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont CA
16. Chomsky N (1980) Rules and Representations. Columbia University Press, New York
17. D’Andrade R G (1992) Schemas and Motivation. In: D’Andrade R, Strauss C (eds) Human Motives and Cultural Models. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
18. Darwin C (1879/2004) The Descent of Man. Penguin Classics, New York
19. Dennett D (2006) Breaking the Spell: Religion as Natural Phenomenon. Viking, New York
20. Feraca S E (1998) Wakinyan: Lakota Religion in the Twentieth Century. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln
21. Fodor J (2005) Reply to Steven Pinker ‘So How Does the Mind Work’? Mind and Language 21(1):25–32
22. Fodor J (2001) The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge
23. Fodor J (1998) In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind. MIT Press, Cambridge
24. Frank R H (1988) Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions. WW Norton, New York
25. Haley K J, Fessler D M T (2005) Nobody’s watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior 26(3):245–256
26. Harris E, McNamara P (2008) Is religiousness a biocultural adaptation? In: Bulbulia J, Sosis R, Harris E, Genet R, Genet C, Wyman K (eds) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Collins Foundation Press, Santa Margarita CA 79–85
27. Henrich, J (2009) The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and Their Implications for Cultural Evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
28. Henrich J, Gil-White F (2001) The Evolution of Prestige: Freely Conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior 22(3):165–196
29. Johnson D D P, Bering J M (2006) Hand of God, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology 4:219–233
30. Kirkpatrick L A (2006) Religion is not an adaptation. In: McNamara P (ed) Where God and Science meet: How brain and evolutionary studies alter our understanding of religion, Volume 1: Evolution, genes, and the religious brain. Praeger, Westport CT
31. Koenig H, McCullough M, Larson D (2001) Handbook of Religion and Health. Oxford University Press, New York
32. Lee R B (2003) The Dobe Ju/’Hoansi (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology). Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont CA
33. Lewis T H (1990) The Medicine Men: Oglala Sioux Ceremony and Healing. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 52–70
34. Mails T E (1979) Fools Crow. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln
35. Norenzayan A, Atran S, Faulkner J, Schaller M (2006) Memory and mystery: The cultural selection of minimally counterintuitive narratives. Cognitive Science 30:531–553
36. Pinker S (2005a) So How Does the Mind Work? Mind and Language 21(1):1–24
37. Pinker S (2005b) A Reply to Jerry Fodor on How the Mind Works. Mind and Language 21(1): 33–38
38. Purzycki B G (2006) Myth, Humor, and Ontological Templates: A study of the Retention and Transmission of Religious Ideas. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
39. Rappaport R A (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
40. Richerson P J, Newson L (2008) Is Religion Adaptive? Yes, No, Neutral, but Mostly, We Don’t Know. In: Bulbulia J, Sosis R, Harris E, Genet R, Genet C, Wyman K (eds) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Collins Foundation Press, Santa Margarita CA
41. Rossano M J (2007) Supernaturalizing social life: religion and the evolution of human cooperation. Human Nature 18(3):272–294
42. Ruffle B J, Sosis R (2007) Does it Pay to Pray? Costly Ritual and Cooperation. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7(1):1–35
43. Ryan R M, Rigby S, King K (1993) Two Types of Religious Internalization and Their Relations to Religious Orientations and Mental Health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65(3):586–596
44. Sanderson R K (2008a) Adaptation, Evolution, and Religion. Religion 38(2):141–156
45. Sanderson R K (2008b) Religious attachment theory and the biosocial evolution of the major World religions. In: Bulbulia J, Sosis R, Harris E, Genet R, Genet C, Wyman K (eds) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Collins Foundation Press, Santa Margarita CA
46. Schloss J (2008) He Who Laughs Best: Involuntary Religious Affect as a Solution to Recursive Cooperative Defection. In: Bulbulia J, Sosis R, Harris E, Genet R, Genet C, Wyman K (eds) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Collins Foundation Press, Santa Margarita CA
47. Searle J R (1997) The Construction of Social Reality. Free Press, New York
48. Shariff A F, Norenzayan A (2007) God is watching you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science 18:803–880
49. Slone D J 2004 Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t. Oxford University Press, Oxford
50. Sosis R (2006) Religious behaviors, badges, and bans: signaling theory and the evolution of religion. In: McNamara P (ed) Where God and Science meet: How brain and evolutionary studies alter our understanding of religion, Volume 1: Evolution, genes, and the religious brain. Praeger, Westport CT
51. Sosis R (2005) Does religion promote trust? The role of signaling, reputation, and punishment. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1:1–30
52. Sosis R, Alcorta C (2003) Signaling, Solidarity, and the Sacred: The Evolution of Religious Behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:264–274
53. Sosis R, Bressler E R (2003) Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion. Cross-Cultural Research 37(2):211–239
54. Sosis R, Ruffle B J (2004) Ideology, Religion, and the Evolution of Cooperation: Field Experiments on Isreali Kibbutzim. Research in Economic Anthropology 23:89–117
55. Sosis R, Ruffle B J (2003) Religious Ritual and Cooperation: Testing for a Relationship on Israeli Religious and Secular Kibbutzim. Current Anthropology 44(5):713–722
56. Sosis R Kress H C, Boster J S (2007) Scars for war: evaluating alternative signaling explanations for cross-cultural variance in ritual costs. Evolution and Human Behavior 28:234–247
57. Sperber D (1996) Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach. Blackwell, Malden
58. Standing Bear L (1928/1975) My People the Sioux. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln
59. Tomasello M (1999) The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
60. Turnbull C M (1987) The Forest People. Simon and Schuster, New York
61. Turner V (1995) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction, Piscataway
62. Van Vugt M, Kurzban R K (2007) Cognitive and social adaptations for leadership and followership: Evolutionary game theory and group dynamics. In: Forgas J, Hippel W von, Haselton M (eds) Sydney symposium of Social Psychology, Volume 9: The evolution of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition.
63. Van Vugt M, Hogan R, Kaiser R (2008) Leadership, followership, and evolution: Some lessons from the past. American Psychologist 63:182–196
64. Wallace A F C (1966) Religion: An Anthropological View. McGraw-Hill, New York
65. Whiteley P M (1998) Rethinking Hopi Ethnography. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D C
66. Wilson D S (2002) Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago University Press, Chicago