week 8

Question 1

(10) key concepts needed to understand theories of religion:

Answer 1

1. Evolution by natural selection reveals how
   design arises from chance
2. Evolution isn’t limited to Natural Selection
   (its not the only mechanism which
   produces variation in the population)
3. gene-environment interactions are subject
   to “norms of reaction” (Evolution does not
   imply genetic determinism)
4. Selection can build designs at the level of
   informational units, not just genes…
5. In humans, functional information is
   offloaded from the genome onto “culture”
6. biologists distinguish between “ultimate”
   and “proximate” causation
7. Evolutionary psychology is based on the
   principle of reverse engineering
8. In psychology we operationalize our
   terms
9. In evolution – the conservation of beliefs
   and rituals implies functions
10. Timing matters

Question 2

1. Evolution by natural selection reveals how

design arises from chance

Answer 2

1. Evolution by natural selection reveals how
   design arises from chance
   • Natural selection is the main mechanism of
   evolution
   • It is a blind process which requires a
   variable population, competition within the
   population (of alleles), and a principle of
   inheritance (offspring inherit parents’ traits).

Example:
• Experiment of the evolution of bacteria in a
petri dish. Antibiotics inside none outside. 0
x, 1 x, 10x 100x, 1000x the amount of
antibiotics in lines within the dish and
bacteria can move around in.
• They first spread in the area with no-
antibiotic till they can no longer survive. A
mutation builds resistance to the antibiotic
and allows them to move into a higher
density band. Mutations spread and
outcompete other mutations, new
mutations are needed everytime the reach
a new band of antibiotic intensity.
• In 11 days they reach 1000x the antibiotic.
• Accumilating successive mutations over
time which allows them to build resistance
to antibotics (evolved) in a short period of
time that wild bacteria would die from

Question 3

2. Evolution isn’t limited to Natural Selection
   (its not the only mechanism which
   produces variation in the population)

Answer 3

• Mutations (random; environmental or
genetic)
• Migration (species moving to new
environments; splitting or drifting of
population into smaller groups)
• Drift (genetic drift which occurs due to
random assorting/sampling)
• BUT Selection is the only process that
accumulates adaptations

Question 4

3. gene-environment interactions are
   subject to “norms of reaction” (Evolution
   does not imply genetic determinism)

Answer 4

• Genotypes give rise to phenotypes via the
interaction with the organisms and the
environment (conditions, diet etc;
expression of alleles determine by
environment).
• Inherent variability in these processes:
Genotypes can be designed to change in
response to environmental change (norms
of reaction)
• Four Norms of Reaction
• The point is genetic determinism isn’t the
only way genes are expressed within a
population via evolution!

Question 5

Four Norms of Reaction (response to the environment)

Answer 5

Four Norms of Reaction (response to the environment)
1. Biological Determinism (genotype
expression which remains constant
irrespective of environmental change e.g.,
five fingers per hand is fixed within a
population)
2. Social Determinism (where different
genotypes express the same phenotype
due to environmental change e.g., cultural
variation of expression of the English
language)
3. Additive Interactions (e.g., athletes who
have a genetic endowment that makes
them olympic medalists; both genetic
endowment and non-genetically endowed
people will improve with training but the
olympic medalist will always be better than
me) = genotypes vary in the same way in
response to the environment.
4. Non-Additive Interaction (where
genotypes respond in opposite directions
in response to environmental change)
e.g., where the more people train the
more weight they lose but others gain
weight

Question 6

4. Selection can build designs at the level

of informational units, not just genes…

Answer 6

• Selection doesn’t just operate on genes
• Ideas, thoughts, beliefs can evolve over
time through cultural evolution
• Dawkins argues that ideas are transmitted
between brains in processes similar to
gene-level natural selection
• Brains are finite (constraint on the number
of idea’s that we can have = competition)
• Ideas can be transmitted (inherited)
• Ideas that compete better will become
more commonplace (variation within a
population in the ideas held)
• Dawkins calls ideas “memes”
• The term “meme” is an example of a very
successful meme

Question 7

5. In humans, functional information is
   offloaded from the genome onto
   “culture”

Answer 7

• (For identifying this process, prefer the
terms “Niche” and “Niche construction”)
• Human niche construction allows us to
modify our environment to reduce the
selective pressures we are facing (heaters
for warmth, buildings, clothing, education,
specialization, libraries; division of Labour
means that people do not need to know
everything themselves and allows for
specialization to occur).
• In the context of religion, keep in mind that
variations in religious beliefs can be partly
explained by how they offload their beliefs
onto their environment (human niche
construction).

Question 8

6. biologists distinguish between “ultimate”

and “proximate” causation

Answer 8

1. Ultimate causes: fitness enhancements
   (why it works)
   • Evolutionary causes; changes in a
   population over generations.
   • Aggressive behavioural response in male
   stickleback fish evolved to reduce the
   number of males in their territory when
   females were laying eggs and reduce the
   chance that they’re fertilized by another
   male other than themselves.
2. Proximate cause: the mechanism (how it
   works)
   • Immediate causes and mechanisms in their
   current environment.
   • E.g., cue for male stickleback fish attack is
   red bellies is a trigger stimulus that elicits
   aggressive response form their behavioural
   repertoire.
   *These will be different! Proximate vs
   ultimate.
   *Maladaptive trait in evolutionary terms e.g.,
   extreme supernatural beliefs and rituals,
   celibacy have no immediate evolutionary
   advantage that we can see (at surface
   level) but their proximal mechanisms might
   have ultimate explanations.
   *e.g., costly rituals have an adaptive function
   in the long run even if they do not make
   sense, it the immediate environment!

Question 9

7. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY IS BASED
   ON THE PRINCIPLE OF REVERSED
   ENGINEERING

Answer 9

1. We may use knowledge of the functional
   demands to formulate hypotheses, by
   linking reasoning about proximate and
   ultimate causation.
   • Given functional demands on creatures
   (ideas, institutions…etc) what designs might
   we expect to find?
   • Psychology mainly focuses on proximal
   mechanisms; evolutionary psychology
   considers its ultimate causes. It believes
   that once we understand its ultimate
   (functional) causes than we can explain
   why it is present today better than if we
   only looked at proximate causes.
   • For example, this tool, what is it? Once we
   know the function of the design we can
   figure out why it is elaborated into its
   current form. Its an avocado cutter. Now we
   can see why each of its design features are
   present; what purpose does it fulfill?
2. We can use ultimate biological causes to
   explain proximate religious beliefs.
   • We may reverse-engineer otherwise
   puzzling features of organic life by
   considering how they might have
   enhanced fitness.
   • I don’t know what this design does, but
   what might it have evolved to do?
   • Once we know the functional target, the
   tool’s design becomes apparent –
   knowledge of evolution helps to clarify a
   functional target.

Question 10

8. In psychology we operationalize our

terms

Answer 10

• We will define religion as beliefs and
behaviors (rituals) regarding the
supernatural or supernormal
• Thinking and responding to supernatural
symbols or targets.
• Is a universal construct; every culture has
religious beliefs and practices; theory of
the supernatural.
• Its as old as humans are.
• Why do we have these beliefs?
• Science begins with the assumption that
there is a natural world and we explain
things within this. We do not comment of
the accuracy etc. of others supernatural
beliefs (no right or wrong).

Question 11

9. In evolution – the conservation of beliefs

and rituals implies functions

Answer 11

• There are three obvious facts about rituals
that make rituals interesting to me, and to
others like me.
o First rituals are old. The evidence suggests
they are as old as humans, perhaps even
older.
o Second, they are widespread. No culture is
without them, not even our own.
o Third, they are costly. However, we expect
the forces of natural and cultural selection
to act against such costs. Why then do
rituals remain so common?
• Christianity (now), clottes-cave drawings
(30-40), Blombos-etchings/engaravings (70-
100tya), Qafzeh (90tya), Herto-ritualized use
of skulls and engravings (150-200tya).
• It can only have been preserved over all this
time if it provides an evolutionary advantage
but what it it?

Example:
New Zealand
• More churches than schools in NZ. Even in
a highly secular country like NZ (i.e., 8
churches and 2 schools in Petone).
• Content of beliefs and form of rituals vary
greatly across cultures, but they serve the
same function.
• Prayer, dancing, music, physical burdens or
walks/offerings, sacrifices or blood rituals,
healing rituals.

Question 12

10. Timing matters

Answer 12

• We shall see next week that across the
Pacific we find evidence that supernatural
punishments anticipated the evolution of
complex and cooperative societies, but this
observation is consistent with theories that
religion evolved to make people cooperate
with others in their group. However, we also
observe that beliefs do not prevent social
complexity from collapsing.
• Society Islands chant. Gods inside, gods
outside, gods above, gods below, gods
oceanward, gods landward, gods incarnate,
gods not incarnate, gods punishing sins,
gods pardoning sins, gods devouring men,
gods slaying warriors, gods saving men,
gods of darkness and light, gods of the ten
skies Can the gods all be counted? They
cannot all be counted!
• There is debate about which of the Rurutu
gods the figure represents. John Williams
identifies it as A’a. The god is depicted in
the process of creating other gods and
men: his creations cover the surface of his
body as thirty small figures

Question 13

Q: Can an evolutionary psychological
approach clarify why Gods are believed to
assume a human form
(anthropomorphism)?

Answer 13

TOM & Anthromorophism
 Can an evolutionary psychological
approach clarify why Gods are believed to
assume a human form
(anthropomorphism)?
• Animism: the world consists of “thinking”
stuff and material stuff.
• 19th century: E.B Tylor: “…that the idea of
souls, demons, deities, and any other
classes of spiritual beings, are conceptions
of similar nature throughout, the
conceptions of souls being the original
ones of the series.”
• 4th Century BCE: Xenophanes: “the
Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-
nosed and black and the Thracians that
theirs are fair and ruddy. But if cattle and
horses and lions had hands and could
create with their hands and achieve works
like those of men, horses would render
their conceptions of the gods like horses,
and cattle like cattle, and each would
depict bodies for them just like their own…”
 People have imaginative TOM, can be
applied to supernatural beings. Project
humans’ morals, beliefs, qualities onto
inanimate or supernatural beings (i.e.,
shapes in clouds).
 Old Theory of Religion (4th century BC;
Critias)
• It has long been argued that religious
beliefs evolve as free police forces.
• If you and I believe we will go farther to
together.
• Religious belief evolved to police people,
moral police forces with the function to
keep people in line and cooperative.
• Helps groups outcompete other groups.

 Problems with this view?
1. How do we get from perceptions to beliefs in human-
like gods?
• This seems to be a big jump from perception to belief.
2. If Zeus or other gods do not actually police people (no
punishment). To conserve the trait there needs to be
something more than belief! People believe that
government, police, or other authoritative systems hold
the same values as our gods.
• Costly signaling theory maintains that religion:
• is an adaptation which consists of cognitive
mechanisms that:
• Distort reality so as to condition persons to misperceive
the payoff matrix in games.
• Motivate people to engage in costly activities relevant
to this misperception.
3. Temporal Discounting (the afterlife is a longtime away,
long time to repent and deal with unhealthy
behaviours from our youth; death may not be a
sufficient motivator if it’s perceived to be a long time
away/future problem)

Question 14

This week: puzzle of belief is solved and puzzle of rituals have a common solution.
*Explaining the problems with the traditional theory of
religion being an evolved system to facilitate religion by
looking at costly signaling (rituals)

Answer 14

 Rituals are costly but functions are unclear:
• Material costs (money/resources)
• Opportunity costs (time; activities missed)
• Metabolic costs (energy consumption)
• Risks to health
 Generally, we can predict what an organism will do
because their actions speak louder than words
• Showing physical commitments that incur a cost
which communicates to others that your belief is
true. It stops others from saying they beleive to get
the benefits without cooperating with the group.
• Gazells jump high to signal to lion do not chase me
i’m too fit you’ll never catch me (handicap principle)
• Applied the handicap principle to religous beliefs to
explain why people incur a cost to signal their
religous beliefs to others (cost to gain a survival
benefit)
• Emotions are hard to fake in humans. Emotional
expression (universal 8) are facial expressions that
are hard to fake and help us identify the emotional
states of conspecifics (evolved; duncehn smile).
• Ulimate cause of Religous Rituals is that they help us
identify people with moralizing beliefs because
people’s actions speak louder than words.

Question 15

What is evolution? (recap)

Answer 15

• Evolution builds design over time.
• Natural selection: variation, inheretence and
competition. Adaptive biological designs
are selected for their evolutionary advatanage for a
population.
• Why do we care about biological adaptations via natural
selection? Shouldn’t we be focused on religion?
• However, Sloan would argue that Darwin’s exert applies
to religion. It talks about REVERSE ENGINEERING.
o When you are focused on examining an object without
a theory of how it came to pass you can miss details on
its design and its context that provide crucial
information in understanding phenomena.
o Adopting the reverse engineering technique from
evolutionary biology provides novel insights into
research.
o Reverse engineering = is a process or method through
the application of which one attempts to understand
through deductive reasoning how a device, process,
system, or piece of software accomplishes a task with
very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so.
• Another metaphor for the benefits of evolutionary
biology’s use of reverse engineering:
1. Familirarity conceals puzzels
2. Solutions require/enrich historical understandings
3. Reverse engineering reveals functional adaptiations
• What does this do?
o Without knowing the function of an object how do we
know what its purpose is? What is this object? How can
it be used? We can begin to understand its desgin and
why each part of it has evolved to serve its function.
Take an obvious object (elephant) and understand it
better ortherwise its just an unknown object.
• Religious beliefs spread because…
o Humans have adapted themselves to nearly every
terrestrial habitat because humans have culture, and
culture evolves.

Question 16

Why is the evolution of cooperation a “problem”?

Answer 16

• How do ideas evolve via cultural evolution? How do
some ideas (memes) evolve to facilitate cooperation
within groups? Why is it hard to evolve?
• Example: The Prisoners Dilemma (game theory)
o Two prisoners captured by the police. Each gets a
lighter sentence by defecting on the other, but the
prisoner’s do best by keeping quiet.
o We can never do better than defecting (go free or 15 vs
20 years).
o The stable evolutionary strategy or Nash equilibrium is
defecting. So how does cooperation evolve?
• Many real-world problems follow this model.
o For example, paying your taxes. Climate change
mitigation. Without findings intrinsic value in the act of
cooperation defecting will become the Nash
equilibrium. You can change the payoff Matrix by using
punishment or incentives.
• THE SOLUTION REQUIRES ADJUSTING PAYOFFS:
What are real-world incentives for mutual cooperation?
o One solution is to have organisations like the
government or police who enforce the law and punish
defectors. However, this only further increases the cost
of cooperation because we now need to pay the police
a salary and run risk of corruption (people paying them
more than their salary to avoid punishment).
o We cannot appeal to police forces. They are the law,
who will police the police? Why would they not defect? =
second order problem police who defect.
o The functional problem that religion solves is the
policing of cooperation. It allows us to reliably
cooperate with one another without increasing
defectors. This is the problem: how to adjust payoffs to
make cooperation pay? Costly signalling where only the
those who truly believe will incur the cost to
demonstrate their devotion to their god[s]
o This is the problem: how to adjust payoffs to make
cooperation pay?

Question 17

How does “commitment signalling” explain religious cooperation?

Answer 17

o The fear of God to frighten the wicked and reward the
righteous. That supernatural beings monitor human
behaviour for moral transgressions and punish
defectors. IF everyone believes in this then everyone
should cooperate. However, not everyone holds these
beliefs! And it is easy to fake devotion and defect
(receive benefits and not incur the cost).
o Supernatural Police Idea: Gods adjust perceived
payoffs

• Problem?
• Why won’t beleifs in supernatural beings to facilate
cooperation work?
o They are not visable; they do not actually dish out
punishment or rewards (i.e., can not chnage the payoff
matrix) and not everyone holds these beliefs (faking
devotion to receive benefit without cost would be the
best stratergy rather than actually beleiving in the god;
better fitness; gradually die out overtime).

• Solution:
o Handicap priciple: Why do animals incur a cost
(peacock feather or gazelll stotting = exsquite design
that enables cooperation) to aid their reproductive
fitness of the animal if they are able to incur such a
cost.
o Peacock tail attracts predators but aids mate selection
and reproductive success (to signal good genes)
o Gazell stotting which jump high infront of predator to
signal that they are high fitness and not worth the effort
of chasing. Predators almost never attack a stotting
gazell becuase they will only waste energy chasing a
prey that is faster than them. The prey incurs cost to
signal their fitness to avoid wasting energy out running
a predator (signal speed). Signals that are hard to fake;
slow pray can not incur the cost to singal and would die
out. Stotting is an adaptation.
o Stotting, a “handicap” evolves because the cheetah
has an interest in spotting a “cheata”

Question 18

How do humans find cooperators? People they can rely on to help them in their time of need?

Answer 18

How do humans find cooperators? People they can rely on to help them in their time of need? We do not need to know with certainty, that is impossible, but we rely on cues to find cooperators (i.e., signals).
o Costly signals and rituals.
o Investment of time, money and effort into us/group
(only useful signal if they are low on these and
investing is a greater cost).
o Emotional reactions (are hard to fake they come
outside of conscious awareness).

NOTE:
• Evolutionary theory: emotions may hard to fake
signals. “Costs” need not be biological/financial
costs.
• Darwin looked at emotional expression signals of
committment:
o Hard to fake smiles. The muscles are not controlled
by our conscious brain and it is easy to spot when
emotions are being faked. Our emotions are
therefore a good signal of an individuals underlying
motivations.
o Why would animals evolve emotions to communicate
internal states to others (motivations)? Why? To
facilitate cooperation in groups. To predict what
people will do which is mutaully beneficial.
• PRE-COMMITMENT E.G. Young Frankenstein –
tattoos are like that: hard to go back

Theory: religious costs signal moral commitments

Question 19

Why not signal: how does religion solve the problem of cooperation?

Answer 19

• We need to look at what religious people do and not
just their beliefs.
• Hinduism: satu’s take vows of extreme self
impovishment and mutulation (carry rock on cock for
years till it is no longer functional; why when it reduces
reproductive success would evolution select for or
mainatin such beliefs?).
• In a religious setting costs are signs of moral
commitment (rather than signs of insanity)
• To an outsider, these extreme rituals are able to deter
non-believers who do not want to incur cost for not
great benefit. True believers incur cost to signal their
committment to other believers and faciliate
cooperation within this group and screen out defectors.
• Actions would be rediculous in the absecnce of beliefs
(as an athiest you can clearly see why people do this?
Only if you truley believe would you commit to such acts
to a non-believer its not worth it).

Question 20

Religious “handicaps” solve the problem of second order defection

Answer 20

• Free riders (defectors) pose a threat to group
cooperation and religion evolved as a supernatural
belief system that punishes free riders.
• To avoid the abuse of power or failure to punish free-
riders thus belief in causation evolved to encourage
people and authorities to cooperate and not abuse their
power.
• Unbelievers and hypocrites (defectors) can be screened
out via costly signals that only true believer will engage
in to signal their supernatural commitment.

*Ritual and belief system = adaptive system evolved to
explain the problem of cooperation.
Religious rituals help us identify trustworthy people
across cultures who do not share a
language with you but cannot fake their emotional
response.

  It doesn’t discredit or prove the content of religious 
  beliefs. All it does is show what 
  function it holds for groups. To facilitate cooperation and 
  trust (highlights the elephant in the room and reveals its 
 function which we may not have found in other means, 
  sacrifice for others and facilitate social interaction).

Question 21

How does “charismatic signalling explain religious cooperation at large scales

Answer 21

However, how does cooperation scale up in situations where people cannot observe each other? (A   C, B  D)

• Religious commitment explanation faces two problems:
o The first is that rituals cannot easily authenticate
cooperative commitments in large worlds where many
partners must interact with strangers.
o We can’t scrutinize the signals of everyone. Second, it
is unclear the extent to which people have choices, to
signal or not.
o If you are in a group, you perform the ritual. There’s no
alternative.
• This system of costly signalling only works if they are
public displays!
o How does religion faciliate large scale cooperation
among strangers?
o Charasmatic singalling = large scale singnalling of
religous committment.
• Note: Not all coooperative problems are threatened by
cheating (i.e., prisoners dilemmas).
o David Hume (Philosipher) and Rousseau (1755)
• How do you get a whole group to cooperate?
• Stag Hunt: for everyone to cooperate everyone must be
confident all members of the group will cooperate and
no one will defect. No one wants to do this is the
benefits are not certain. Thus people will tend to defect
because it is the safer option to increase chances of
receive gains.
o Some problems turn to risk!
• Two Eqauilibriums:
• Stable: I can do no better if everyone defects (low risk)
• Unstable: I can do no better if everyone cooperates
(high risk)

o Charismatic Signalling:
• predicts affective technologies (highly automated, and
unthinking) support efficient equilibriums as societies
scale up.
• When cooperation is threatened by risk; mechanisms
have evolved to coordinate people motivations and not
to think about risk will provide solutions to large scale
cooperation problems.
o Technologies: Emergence
• Theatre complexes emerged to provide large scale
civilizations devoted to gods designed to align people’s
beliefs and motivations about the cosmos. It made
people predictably cooperative.

Question 22

Evidence for religious commitment and charismatic signalling:
two studies

Study 1:
Commitment Signalling
Religious Solidarity: The hand grenade experiment

Answer 22

Study 1:
Commitment Signalling
Religious Solidarity: The hand grenade experiment

• How do religious and non-religious participants respond
to costly religious rituals?
• In religion condition, there was a program which
Christians believed they were talking with another
Christian participant. They were given $5 and their
partner had $0 dollars. Their peer thought the
participant was not Christian and gave them $0 dollars
(costly act to avoid interacting with non-Christian).
Would the participant give any money back to them?
• In the non-religion condition, the same process but a
Wellingtonian thought they were interacting with an
Aucklander. How much money would they give back?
• Results:
• Christians gave more money back than secular
participants.
• Supports that costly signal to communicate commitment
to religion do facilitate cooperation.

Question 23

Evidence for religious commitment and charismatic signalling:
two studies

Study 2
Charismatic Signalling
Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality

Answer 23

Study 2
Charismatic Signalling
Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality

• Do costly signals (painful rituals) promote cooperation in
anonymous settings?
• Mauritius island community which do thaipusam Hindu
rituals (most intense rituals around) where they incur
mutilation, heavy burdens, pain and malnourishment to
signal commitment.
• The festival commemorates the occasion when Parvati
gave Murugan a vel “spear” so he could vanquish the
evil demon Soorapadam (10 day festival).
• Was a field study so we can not manipulate people like
we could if they were in a lab.

• Method:
• Compare 2 similar rituals at Thaipusam: low order
collective prayer or high order cavadee ritual
(performers and observers).
• Furthermore, the Cavadee participants consist in active
performers and observers, who simply follow the
procession without engaging in any of the painful
activities.
• After completing the questionnaire, participants were
paid 200 rupees in coins of 20 (approximately two days’
salary of an unskilled worker) for participating in the
study. Upon leaving, a confederate asked them to enter
a booth where they had the opportunity to anonymously
donate any part of this money to the temple
(anonymous donations).
• Complete survey, given reward, asked if they would
donate back to temple, anonymously (economic game in
naturalistic setting).

• Hypothesis:
• 1: Low Intensity will lead to lower charity than High
Intensity
• 2: High will lead to higher parochial identity (ingroup
commitment) than Low
• 3: Empathetic effects among High observers.

• Measures:
• Prosociality:
• behaviour: charity donation to temple.
• Attitudes: social identification
• is an issue because people will only provide the top of
the scale on Maurtian. Thus, they forced a choice
between Maurtian (their inclusive superordinate national
identity) and Hindu (their parochial ethnic-religious
identity).
• To examine views on out-groups, Hindu was replaced
by Creole and Muslim. Religiosity was operationalized
in terms of attitudes (belief) and behaviour (temple
attendance). These questions were adapted from the
World Values Survey (Inglehart, 2003) in discussion with
focus groups.
• Religiosity: belief and temple attendance
• Pain: perceived and actual pain felt during ritual.
• Groups:
• Low Intensity Particiapnts:
• Music, dance, singing and prayer without any physical
rituals.
• High Intensity Participants:
• Mutilation, piercing, carrying alters and observers.

• Results:
• In low intensity ritual condition they gave less than half
of the money back to the temple
• In the high intensity condition, observers gave 2x as
much than the low intensity group. Participants gave
more than low intensity group but less than the high
intensity observers.
• Perception of pain endured for ritual correlated with
amount given. Higher perceived pain meant more
money given back to temple. Why? Act of charity in food
(giving food, water, pain, enacted by an individual on
behalf of the community and their beliefs; it primes the
act of giving and makes people more willing to give
also; especially those who did not participate
themselves).
• Signal of commitment and giving! Not just giving to
friends but to GODS — cosmic and moral meaning.
• Identity: all groups felt more of a connection to their
national identity than to their religious identity. The high
intensity participator felt 2x as strongly to their national
identity rather than their religious one.

• Why?
o Mauritous (overarching group identity; multiethnic and
religious community; social bond between religious
groups). So, we think that these results support long-
standing anthropological conjectures about the
cooperative effects of high-arousal rituals. As an
ethnographer, you can clearly see social cohesion in this
context, like when these people wait for the procession
to arrive to offer everyone free drinks and fruit, and to
pour water on the road so soothe their feet that have
been walking on the burning asfalt.
o Not just Hindus
o These findings are also in accordance with laboratory
findings that perceptions of pain and effort motivate
higher levels of prosociality (what has been called the
martyrdom effect)
o Finally, they expand our previous findings that extreme
rituals promote empathic arousal among observers to
the ordeals of ritual actors
o So, extreme rituals may amplify prosocial attitudes and
behaviours, and the link connecting these ordeals to
social solidarity may lie in direct or empathic
experiences of pain.

Question 24

Lecture Summary

Answer 24

1. Did religion evolve cooperation?
   • What is evolution? (recap)
   • Why is the evolution of cooperation a “problem”?
   • How does “commitment signalling” explain religious
   cooperation?
   • How does “charismatic signalling” explain religious
   cooperation at large scales
2. Evidence
   • Hand Grenade experiment reveals costly within
   group cooperation
   • Ritual Pain study reveals increased generosity in
   response to commitment displays.

Practical Implications?
§ Transformation of the obvious: what systems bind
secular people together?