Bendixen Theiss, Lightner Aaron D, Apicella Coren, Atkinson Quentin, Bolyanatz Alexander, Cohen Emma, Handley Carla, Henrich Joseph, Klocová Eva Kundtová, Lesorogol Carolyn, Mathew Sarah, McNamara Rita A, Moya Cristina, Norenzayan Ara, Placek Caitlyn, Soler Montserrat, Vardy Tom, Weigel Jonathan, Willard Aiyana K, Xygalatas Dimitris, Lang Martin, Purzycki Benjamin Grant
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Evol Hum Sci. 2023 May 12;5:e18. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2023.15. eCollection 2023.
Psychological and cultural evolutionary accounts of human sociality propose that beliefs in punitive and monitoring gods that care about moral norms facilitate cooperation. While there is some evidence to suggest that belief in supernatural punishment and monitoring generally induce cooperative behaviour, the effect of a deity's moral concerns on cooperation remains unclear. Here, we report a pre-registered set of analyses to assess whether perceiving a locally relevant deity as moralistic predicts cooperative play in two permutations of two economic games using data from up to 15 diverse field sites. Across games, results suggest that gods' moral concerns do not play a direct, cross-culturally reliable role in motivating cooperative behaviour. The study contributes substantially to the current literature by testing a central hypothesis in the evolutionary and cognitive science of religion with a large and culturally diverse dataset using behavioural and ethnographically rich methods.
关于人类社会性的心理学和文化进化理论认为，相信惩罚性且关注道德规范的监督之神有助于促进合作。虽然有一些证据表明，对超自然惩罚和监督的信仰通常会引发合作行为，但神灵的道德关切对合作的影响仍不明确。在此，我们报告一组预先注册的分析，利用来自多达15个不同实地研究地点的数据，评估将当地相关神灵视为道德主义者是否能预测在两种经济博弈的两种变体中的合作行为。在所有博弈中，结果表明神灵的道德关切在激励合作行为方面并没有发挥直接的、跨文化可靠的作用。这项研究通过使用行为学和丰富的人种志方法，以一个规模庞大且文化多样的数据集检验宗教进化与认知科学中的一个核心假设，为当前文献做出了重大贡献。
