ReviewSupernatural punishment beliefs as cognitively compelling tools of social control
Section snippets
Supernatural punishment beliefs are more widespread than we think
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
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, 19, 20, 21, 22, 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
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 epistemic vigilance mechanisms. In the following, we outline how cognitive biases and strategic incentives
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,
CRediT author statement
Léo Fitouchi: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing. Manvir Singh: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing.
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
Acknowledgements
The authors 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 article. 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.
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