Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:38:19.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The evolution of religious misbelief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Ara Norenzayan ,
Azim F. Shariff  and
Will M. Gervais
Ara Norenzayan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. [email protected]/[email protected]/[email protected]
Azim F. Shariff
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. [email protected]/[email protected]/[email protected]
Will M. Gervais
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. [email protected]/[email protected]/[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inducing religious thoughts increases prosocial behavior among strangers in anonymous contexts. These effects can be explained both by behavioral priming processes as well as by reputational mechanisms. We examine whether belief in moralizing supernatural agents supplies a case for what McKay & Dennett (M&D) call evolved misbelief, concluding that they might be more persuasively seen as an example of culturally evolved misbelief.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 531 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K. & Troetschel, R. (2001) Automating the will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81:1014–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bering, J. M., McLeod, K. A. & Shackelford, T. K. (2005) Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. Human Nature 16:360–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cauvin, J. (2000) The birth of the Gods and the origins of agriculture. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dijksterhuis, A., Preston, J., Wegner, D. M. & Aarts, H. (2008) Effects of subliminal priming of self and God on self-attribution of authorship for events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44:2–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2003) The nature of human altruism. Nature 425:785–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gervais, W. & Norenzayan, A. (2009) Priming God increases public self-awareness. Unpublished raw data, University of British Columbia. [Author's note: The data are available upon request from Ara Norenzayan at: ]Google Scholar
Govern, J. M. & Marsch, L. A. (2001) Development and validation of the Situational Self-Awareness Scale. Consciousness and Cognition 10:366–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J., Ensminger, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. & Ziker, J. (2009) Markets, religion, community size and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia. (Not available online; available upon request from Joseph Henrich at: )CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. (in press) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Bering, J. M. (2006) Hand of God, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology 4:219–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norenzayan, A. (in press) Why we believe: Religion as a human universal. In: Human morality and sociality: Evolutionary and comparative perspectives, ed. Hogh-Oleson, H.. Palgrave/Macmillan.Google Scholar
Norenzayan, A. & Shariff, A. F. (2008) The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science 322:58–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Randolph-Seng, B. & Nielsen, M. E. (2008) Is God really watching you? A response to Shariff and Norenzayan (2007). The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 18(2):119–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roes, F. L. & Raymond, M. (2003) Belief in moralizing gods. Evolution and Human Behavior 24(2):126–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sears, D. (1986) College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51:515–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. (2007) God is watching you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science 18(9):803–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shariff, A. F., Norenzayan, A. & Henrich, J. (2010) The birth of high gods. In: Evolution, culture, and the human mind, ed. Schaller, M., Norenzayan, A., Heine, S. J., Yamagishi, T. & Kameda, T., pp. 119–36. Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Trimble, D. E. (1997) The religious orientation scale: Review and meta-analysis of social desirability effects. Educational and Psychological Measurement 57:970–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar