Understanding the Evolution of Religion
An Interdisciplinary Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.35729Keywords:
cultural evolution, dual-inheritance, religionAbstract
Understanding the Evolution of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Approach
References
Alcorta, C. S. and R. Sosis. 2005. “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols.” Human Nature 16 (4): 323–359. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-005-1014-3
Atran, S. and J. Henrich. 2010. “The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions.” Biological Theory 5(1): 18–30. http://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00018
Boyd, R. and P. J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1996. “Why Culture Is Common, But Cultural Evolution Is Rare.” Presented at the Proceedings-British Academy.
Call, J. and M. Tomasello. 2008. “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind? 30 Years Later.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12(5): 187–192. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010
Chudek, M. and J. Henrich. 2011. “Culture-Gene Coevolution, Norm-Psychology and the Emergence of Human Prosociality.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15(5). 218–226. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.03.003
Cohen, A. B. and P. Rozin. 2001. “Religion and the Morality of Mentality.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(4): 697–710. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.4.697
Gervais, W. M., A. K. Willard, A. Norenzayan and J. Henrich. 2011. “The Cultural Transmission of Faith: Why Natural Intuitions and Memory Biases are Necessary, But Insufficient, to Explain Religious Belief.” Religion 41(1): 389–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.604510
Henrich, J. 2004. “Cultural Group Selection, Coevolutionary Processes and Large-scale Cooperation.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 53(1): 3–35. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-2681(03)00094-5
———. 2009. “The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation, and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and Their Implications for Cultural Evolution.” Evolution and Human Behavior 30: 244–260. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
———. 2015. The Secret of Our Sucess: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Henrich, J. and R. Boyd. 1998. “The Evolution of Conformist Transmission and the Emergence of Between-Group Differences.” Evolution and Human Behavior 19: 215–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(98)00018-X
Henrich, J. and F. J. Gil-White. 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. http://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10110
Henrich, J. and R. McElreath. 2003. “The Evolution of Cultural Evolution.” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 12(12): 123–135. http://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10110
———. 2007. “Dual-Inheritance Theory: The Evolution of Human Cultural Capacities and Cultural Evolution.” In Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by L. Barrett and R. Dunbar, 555–570. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0038
Henrich, J., J. Ensimger, R. McElreath, A. Barr, C. Barrett, A. Bolyanatz, J. C. Cardenas, M. Gurven, E. Gwako, N. Henrich, C. Lesorogol, F. Marlowe, D. Tracer and J. Ziker. 2010. “Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment.” Science 327(5972): 1480–1484. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1182238
Herrmann, E., J. Call, M. V. Hernández-Lloreda, B. Hare and M. Tomasello. 2007. “Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis.” Science 317(5843): 1360–1366. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1146282
Johnson, D. 2015. God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. New York: Oxford University Press.
Laland, K. N., J. Odling-Smee and S. Myles 2010. “How Culture Shaped the Human Genome: Bringing Genetics and the Human Sciences Together.” Nature Reviews Genetics 11(2): 137–148. http://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2734
Lefebvre, L. 2013. “Brains, Innovations, Tools and Cultural Transmission in Birds, Non-human Primates, and Fossil Hominins.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7(245): 1–10. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00245
Muthukrishna, M. and J. Henrich. 2015. “Innovation in the Collective Brain.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371(20150192): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0192
Nagell, K., R. S. Olguin and M. Tomasello. 1993. “Processes of Social Learning in the Tool Use of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Human Children (Homo sapiens).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 107: 174–186. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.107.2.174
Norenzayan, A. 2013. Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Princeton University Press.
Norenzayan, A. and A. F. Shariff. 2008. “The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality.” Science 322(5898): 58–62. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1158757
Norenzayan, A., A. F. Shariff, W. M. Gervais, A. K. Willard, R. A. McNamara,
E. Slingerland and J. Henrich. 2016. “The Cultural Evolution of Prosocial Religions.” Behavior and Brain Sciences 39(e1): 1–65. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
Norris, P. and R. Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Purzycki, B. G., C. Apicella, Q. D. Atkinson, E. Cohen, R. A. McNamara, A. K. Willard, D. Xygalatas, A. Norenzayan and J. Henrich. 2016. “Moralistic Gods, Supernatural Punishment and the Expansion of Human Sociality.” Nature 530: 327–330. http://doi.org/10.1038/nature16980
Richerson, P. J. and R. Boyd. 2000. “Climate, Culture, and the Evolution of Cognition.” In The Evolution of Cognition, edited by C. Heyes and L. Huber, 329–346. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 2005. Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Roes, F. L. and M. Raymond. 2003. “Belief in Moralizing Gods.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24(2): 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4
Sigmund, K., H. De Silva, A. Traulsen and C. Hauert. 2010. ”Social Learning Promotes Institutions for Governing the Commons.” Nature 466(7308): 861–863. http://doi.org/10.1038/nature09203
Tomasello, M., M. Carpenter, J. Call, T. Behne and H. Moll. 2005. “Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28: 675–735. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X05000129
van Schaik, C. P. and J. M. Burkart. 2011. “Social Learning and Evolution: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1567): 1008–1016. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0304
van Schaik, C. P., K. Isler and J. M. Burkart. 2012. ”Explaining Brain Size Variation: From Social to Cultural Brain.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16(5): 277–284. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.004
Watson-Jones, R. E. and C. H. Legare. 2016. “The Social Functions of Group Rituals.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 25(1): 42–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415618486
Whiten, A. and C. P. van Schaik. 2007. “The Evolution of Animal ‘Cultures’ and Social Intelligence.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362(1480): 603–620. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1998
Wilson, D. S. 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Wiltermuth, S. S. and C. Heath. 2009. “Synchrony and Cooperation.” Psychological Science 20(1): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02253.x
Wrangham, R. and N. Conklin-Brittain. 2003. “Cooking as a Biological Trait.” Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part a: Molecular and Integrative Physiology 136(1): 35–46. http://doi.org/10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5
Xygalatas, D., P. Mitkidis, R. Fischer, P. Reddish, J. Skewes, A. W. Geertz, A. Roepstorff and J. Bulbulia. 2013. “Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality.” Psychological Science 24(8): 1602–1605. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612472910
Atran, S. and J. Henrich. 2010. “The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions.” Biological Theory 5(1): 18–30. http://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00018
Boyd, R. and P. J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1996. “Why Culture Is Common, But Cultural Evolution Is Rare.” Presented at the Proceedings-British Academy.
Call, J. and M. Tomasello. 2008. “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind? 30 Years Later.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12(5): 187–192. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010
Chudek, M. and J. Henrich. 2011. “Culture-Gene Coevolution, Norm-Psychology and the Emergence of Human Prosociality.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15(5). 218–226. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.03.003
Cohen, A. B. and P. Rozin. 2001. “Religion and the Morality of Mentality.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(4): 697–710. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.4.697
Gervais, W. M., A. K. Willard, A. Norenzayan and J. Henrich. 2011. “The Cultural Transmission of Faith: Why Natural Intuitions and Memory Biases are Necessary, But Insufficient, to Explain Religious Belief.” Religion 41(1): 389–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.604510
Henrich, J. 2004. “Cultural Group Selection, Coevolutionary Processes and Large-scale Cooperation.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 53(1): 3–35. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-2681(03)00094-5
———. 2009. “The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation, and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and Their Implications for Cultural Evolution.” Evolution and Human Behavior 30: 244–260. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
———. 2015. The Secret of Our Sucess: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Henrich, J. and R. Boyd. 1998. “The Evolution of Conformist Transmission and the Emergence of Between-Group Differences.” Evolution and Human Behavior 19: 215–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(98)00018-X
Henrich, J. and F. J. Gil-White. 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. http://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10110
Henrich, J. and R. McElreath. 2003. “The Evolution of Cultural Evolution.” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 12(12): 123–135. http://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10110
———. 2007. “Dual-Inheritance Theory: The Evolution of Human Cultural Capacities and Cultural Evolution.” In Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by L. Barrett and R. Dunbar, 555–570. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0038
Henrich, J., J. Ensimger, R. McElreath, A. Barr, C. Barrett, A. Bolyanatz, J. C. Cardenas, M. Gurven, E. Gwako, N. Henrich, C. Lesorogol, F. Marlowe, D. Tracer and J. Ziker. 2010. “Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment.” Science 327(5972): 1480–1484. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1182238
Herrmann, E., J. Call, M. V. Hernández-Lloreda, B. Hare and M. Tomasello. 2007. “Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis.” Science 317(5843): 1360–1366. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1146282
Johnson, D. 2015. God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. New York: Oxford University Press.
Laland, K. N., J. Odling-Smee and S. Myles 2010. “How Culture Shaped the Human Genome: Bringing Genetics and the Human Sciences Together.” Nature Reviews Genetics 11(2): 137–148. http://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2734
Lefebvre, L. 2013. “Brains, Innovations, Tools and Cultural Transmission in Birds, Non-human Primates, and Fossil Hominins.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7(245): 1–10. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00245
Muthukrishna, M. and J. Henrich. 2015. “Innovation in the Collective Brain.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371(20150192): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0192
Nagell, K., R. S. Olguin and M. Tomasello. 1993. “Processes of Social Learning in the Tool Use of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Human Children (Homo sapiens).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 107: 174–186. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.107.2.174
Norenzayan, A. 2013. Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Princeton University Press.
Norenzayan, A. and A. F. Shariff. 2008. “The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality.” Science 322(5898): 58–62. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1158757
Norenzayan, A., A. F. Shariff, W. M. Gervais, A. K. Willard, R. A. McNamara,
E. Slingerland and J. Henrich. 2016. “The Cultural Evolution of Prosocial Religions.” Behavior and Brain Sciences 39(e1): 1–65. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
Norris, P. and R. Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Purzycki, B. G., C. Apicella, Q. D. Atkinson, E. Cohen, R. A. McNamara, A. K. Willard, D. Xygalatas, A. Norenzayan and J. Henrich. 2016. “Moralistic Gods, Supernatural Punishment and the Expansion of Human Sociality.” Nature 530: 327–330. http://doi.org/10.1038/nature16980
Richerson, P. J. and R. Boyd. 2000. “Climate, Culture, and the Evolution of Cognition.” In The Evolution of Cognition, edited by C. Heyes and L. Huber, 329–346. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
———. 2005. Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Roes, F. L. and M. Raymond. 2003. “Belief in Moralizing Gods.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24(2): 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4
Sigmund, K., H. De Silva, A. Traulsen and C. Hauert. 2010. ”Social Learning Promotes Institutions for Governing the Commons.” Nature 466(7308): 861–863. http://doi.org/10.1038/nature09203
Tomasello, M., M. Carpenter, J. Call, T. Behne and H. Moll. 2005. “Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28: 675–735. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X05000129
van Schaik, C. P. and J. M. Burkart. 2011. “Social Learning and Evolution: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1567): 1008–1016. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0304
van Schaik, C. P., K. Isler and J. M. Burkart. 2012. ”Explaining Brain Size Variation: From Social to Cultural Brain.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16(5): 277–284. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.004
Watson-Jones, R. E. and C. H. Legare. 2016. “The Social Functions of Group Rituals.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 25(1): 42–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415618486
Whiten, A. and C. P. van Schaik. 2007. “The Evolution of Animal ‘Cultures’ and Social Intelligence.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362(1480): 603–620. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1998
Wilson, D. S. 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Wiltermuth, S. S. and C. Heath. 2009. “Synchrony and Cooperation.” Psychological Science 20(1): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02253.x
Wrangham, R. and N. Conklin-Brittain. 2003. “Cooking as a Biological Trait.” Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part a: Molecular and Integrative Physiology 136(1): 35–46. http://doi.org/10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5
Xygalatas, D., P. Mitkidis, R. Fischer, P. Reddish, J. Skewes, A. W. Geertz, A. Roepstorff and J. Bulbulia. 2013. “Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality.” Psychological Science 24(8): 1602–1605. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612472910
Published
2018-05-15
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Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Willard, A. K., & Baimel, A. (2018). Understanding the Evolution of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 4(1), 73-80. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.35729
