safe sects

In Practicing Safe Sects: Religious Reproduction in Scientific and Philosophical Perspective (Brill Academic, 2018), I reviewed much of the recent research literature that supports the claim that gods (imagined supernatural agents) are born in human minds and borne in human cultures as a result of naturally evolved cognitive and coalitional biases.

I cited close to 800 recent empirical studies and theoretical analyses as part of my argument that these biases toward theism, which are entangled with biases toward racism, classism, and sexism, are now maladaptive in our late modern, pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment.

 

This literature is growing so rapidly that it is hard to keep up. Several relevant articles and books were published during the few weeks that passed between my handing in the final manuscript and receiving the page proofs. Rather than trying to incorporate new citations into the book, I decided to provide an online list of some of the most significant studies that appeared during this period. In each case, I indicate their relevance for the main hypotheses of theogonic reproduction theory:

 

• Hypothesis #1: the mechanisms that produce theistic credulity or anthropomorphic promiscuity - the tendency to appeal to the causal efficacy of supernatural agents when trying to make sense of the world - are the result of naturally selected cognitive biases that engender mistaken attributions of intentionality as part of a phylogenetically inherited error management strategy. 

 

• Hypothesis #2: the mechanisms that produce theistic conformity or sociographic prudery - the tendency to appeal to the moral normativity of supernatural authorities when trying to act sensibly in society - are the result of naturally selected coalitional biases that engender suspicion of out-group members as part of a phylogenetically inherited risk management strategy.

 

• Hypothesis #3: the mechanisms that produce anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery are often reciprocally reinforcing. 

 

• Hypothesis #4: each of the first three hypotheses can be inverted. In other words, theistic credulity and conformity biases are decreased as individuals learn (or are psychologically disposed and/or contextually cued) to contest the mechanisms that engender anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery, respectively, and the decrementation of one sort of bias often decrements the other.   

 

• Hypothesis #5: "religion" (understood as the interaction and integration of theistic credulity and conformity biases) is not as salutogenic as early research in positive psychology and intergroup conflict studies suggested. 

 

The first three hypotheses are treated explicitly and in most detail in Chapter 1, while the last two hypotheses are more implicit and explored in most detail in chapter 12. 

The following list of articles and book chapters that are relevant for theogonic reproduction theory only includes those that appeared in late 2017 and early 2018 during the process of developing the proofs for Practicing Safe Sects. At the bottom of this page, I provide comments on some other (pre-2017) articles and book chapters that were not cited in the book, but which also provide warrant for one or more of the five hypotheses of theogonic reproduction theory (see below). For those interested in a full bibliography that goes back several years, and continues to the present,  see the IBCSR Research Review. 

 

• Ahrenfeldt, Linda, Sören Möller, Karen Andersen-Ranberg, Astrid Vitved, Rune Lindahl-Jacobsen, and Niels Hvidt. Religiousness and health in Europe. European Journal of Epidemiology 32, no. 10 (2017): 921–929. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Andersen, Marc. (2017). Predictive coding in agency detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1–20. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Andersen, Marc, Thies Pfeiffer, Sebastian Müller, and Uffe Schjoedt. Agency detection in predictive minds: A virtual reality study. Religion, Brain & Behavior (2017): 1–13. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Bahçekapili, H. G., & Yilmaz, O. (2017). The relation between different types of religiosity and analytic cognitive style. Personality and Individual Differences, 117, 267–272. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Basedau, M., G. Simone and S. Prediger (2018). The multidimensional effects of religion on socioeconomic development: A review of the empirical literature. Journal of Economic Surveys, 1-28. Relevant for Hypothesis #4-5.
• Bradley, D. F., Exline, J. J., & Uzdavines, A. (2017). Relational reasons for nonbelief in the existence of gods: An important adjunct to intellectual nonbelief. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 9(4), 319. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L. McKee, S. and Gervais, W. M. (2018).  Atheist horns and religious halos: Mental representations of atheists and theists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 147/2, 292-297. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Bullivant, S. (2018). Europe's young adults and religion: Findings from the European social survey (2014-2016) to inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops. Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society,1-11. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Carlisle, J. E. & Clark, A. K. (2018). Green for God: Religion and environmentalism by cohort and time.  Environment and Behavior. 50/2, 213-241. Relevant for Hypothesis #5. 
• Chudek, M., McNamara, R. A., Birch, S., Bloom, P., & Henrich, J. (2017). Do minds switch bodies? Dualist interpretations across ages and societies. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1–15. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Cohen, A. B., et al. (2017). Theorizing and measuring religiosity across cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 43 (12), 1724-36. Relevant for Hypothesis #3. 
• Corcoran, K. E., Pettinicchio, D., & Robbins, B. (2017). A double-edged sword: The countervailing effects of religion on cross-national violent crime. Social Science Quarterly. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Cowgill, C. M., Rios, K., & Simpson, A. (2017). Generous heathens? Reputational concerns and atheists’ behavior toward Christians in economic games. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, 169–179. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Cragun, R. T., Fazzino, L. L., & Manning, C. (Eds.). (2017). Organized Secularism in the United States. Boston: Walter De Gruyter Inc. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Daws, R. E. and A. Hampshire. (2017). The negativity relationship between reasoning and religiosity is underpinned by a bias for intuitive responses specifically when intuition and logic are in conflict. Frontiers in Psychology - Cognition, 8: 2191. Relevant for Hypothesis #4. 
• Debono, A., Shariff, A. F., Poole, S., & Muraven, M. (2016). Forgive us our trespasses: Priming a forgiving (but not a punishing) god increases unethical behavior. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Relevant for Hypothesis #3. 
• Disney, L. R. (2017). Associations between humanitarianism, othering, and religious affiliation. Social Work & Christianity, 44(3). Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Dubendorff, S., & Luchner, A. F. (2017). The perception of atheists as narcissistic. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 9(4), 368. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Dunbar, R. & Sosis, R. (2018). Optimising human community sizes. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 39: 106-111. Relevant for Hypothesis #3.
• Dunwoody, P. T. and McFarland, S. G. (2018). Support for anti-Muslim policies: The role of political traits and threat perception. Political Psychology. 39/1, 89-106. Relevant for Hypothesis #2. 
• Ecklund, E. H., Scheitle, C. P., Peifer, J., & Bolger, D. (2017). Examining links between religion, evolution views, and climate change skepticism. Environment and Behavior, 49(9), 985–1006. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Farias, M., Mulukom, V., Kahane, G., Kreplin, U., Joyce, A., Soares, P., Savulescu, J. (2017). Supernatural belief is not modulated by intuitive thinking style or cognitive inhibition. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 15100. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Ferrero, M. (2017). Thresholds: A model of religious governance and evolution. European Journal of Political Economy, 50, 1-21. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Fisher, A. R. (2017). A review and conceptual model of the research on doubt, disaffiliation, and related religious changes. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 9(4), 358. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Friedman, J. P. and Jack, A. I. (2018). What makes you so sure? Dogmatism, fundamentalism, analytic thinking, perspective taking and moral concern in the religious and nonreligious. Journal of Religion and Health. 57, 157-190. Relevant for Hypotheses #2-5.
• Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., & Schrade, A. (2017). Christian self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(5), 786. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Gore, R., Lemos, C., Shults, F. L., & Wildman, W. J. (2018). Forecasting changes in religiosity and existential security with an agent-based model, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulaitons 21, 1–31. Relevant for Hypothesis #3.
• Greenway, T. S., Schnitker, S. A  & S. M. Shepherd. Can prayer increase charitable giving? Examining the effects of intercessory prayer, moral intuitions, and theological orientation on generous behavior. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 28(1): 3-18. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Hagevi, M. (2017). Religious change over the generations in an extremely secular society: The case of Sweden. Review of Religious Research. 59, 499-518. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Hellmer, K., Stenson, J. T., and Jylha, K. M. (2018). What's (not) underpinning ambivalent sexism?: Revisiting the role of ideology, religiosity, personality, demographics, and men's facial hair in explaining hostile and benevolent sexism. Personality and Individual Differences. 122, 29-37. Relevant for Hypothesis #5. 
• Hernández Blasi, C., Bjorklund, D. F., & Ruiz Soler, M. (2017). Children’s supernatural thinking as a signalling behaviour in early childhood. British Journal of Psychology, 108(3), 467–485. Relevant for Hypothesis #3.
• Hobson, N. M., Bonk, D., Inzlicht, M., & Hung, T.-M. (2017). Rituals decrease the neural response to performance failure. PeerJ, 5. Relevant for Hypothesis #2. 
• Hobson, N. M., Gino, F., Norton, M. I., & Inzlicht, M. (2017). When Novel Rituals Lead to Intergroup Bias: Evidence From Economic Games and Neurophysiology. Psychological Science, 28(6), 733–750. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Howard, S., Oswald, D., & M. Kirkman (2018). Who believes in a male God? Ideological beliefs and gendered conceptualizations of God. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 28(1), 55-70. Relevant for Hypothesis #3. 
• Jones, R. P., & Cox, D. (2017, September 6). America’s Changing Religious Identity. Public Religion Research Institute. Retrieved from https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PRRI-Religion-Report.pdf. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Kosher, H., & Ben-Arieh, A. (2017). Religion and subjective well-being among children: A comparison of six religion groups. Children and Youth Services Review, 80, 63–77. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• León, A. K., & Pfeifer, C. (2017). Religious activity, risk-taking preferences and financial behaviour: Empirical evidence from German survey data. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 69, 99–107. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Liberman, Z., Kinzler, K. D., & Woodward, A. L. (2018). The early social significance of shared ritual actions. Cognition, 171, 42–51. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Maij, D. L. R., Van Harreveld, F., Gervais, W., Schrag, Y., Mohr, C., Van Elk, M., & Botbol, M. (2017). Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do. PLoS ONE, 12(8). Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Maij, D. L. R., Van Schie, H. T., & Van Elk, M. (2017). The boundary conditions of the hypersensitive agency detection device: an empirical investigation of agency detection in threatening situations. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1–29. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Martin, L. H., & Wiebe, D. (Eds.). (2017). Religion Explained?: The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-Five Years. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Relevant for Hypotheses #1-5.
• Matthews, M.A. and P. J. Mazzocco. (2017). Perceptions of religious hypocrisy: When moral claims exceed moral action. Review of Religious Research, 59, 519-528. Relevant for Hypothesis #2. 
• Mercier, B., A. Shariff & S. Kramer. (2018). The belief in God: Why people believe and why they don't. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1-20. Relevant for Hypotheses #1-3.
• Winkelman, M. J.. (2017). The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences: Hypotheses from Evolutionary Psychology. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 11. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Mocan, N., & Pogorelova, L. (2017). Compulsory schooling laws and formation of beliefs: Education, religion and superstition. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 142, 509–539. Relevant for Hypothesis #5. 
• Patrzyk, P. M., & Takac, M. (2017). Cooperation via intimidation: An emergent system of mutual threats can maintain social order. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 20(4), 1–5. Relevant for Hypothesis #5.
• Pazhoohi, F., Pinho, M., & Arantes, J. (2017). Effect of religious day on prosocial behavior: A field study. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 27(2), 116–123. Relevant for Hypothesis #2.
• Purzycki, B. G., Ross, C. T., Apicella, C., Atknson, Q., Cohen, E., McNamara, R. A. , Willard A. K. , Xygalatas, D., Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. Material security, life history, and moralistic religions: A cross-cultural examination. PLoS One, March 7, 2018, 1-14. Relevant for Hypothesis #3. 
• Riekki, T., Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M., & Lindeman, M. (2017). Empathizers and systemizers process social information differently. Social Neuroscience, 1–12. Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Riggio, H., J. Uhalt, B. Matthies, T. Harvey, N. Lowden, and V. Umana. (2018). Explaining death by tornado: Religiosity and the God-serving bias. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 1-28. Relevant for Hypothesis #1.
• Romano, A., Balliet, D., Yamagishi, T., & Liu, J. H. (2017). Parochial trust and cooperation across 17 societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114 (48), 12702–12707. Relevant for Hypotheses #2 and 5.
• Różycka-Tran, J. (2017). Love thy neighbor? The effects of religious in/out-group identity on social behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 115, 7–12. Relevant for Hypotheses #2 and 5.
• Ruper, S. (2018). To naturalize is to differentiate: How recent scientific theories of cognition provide a more plural basis for theorizing religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 30, 71-95. Relevant for Hypothesis #3.
• Salazar Carles. (2017). Phantom Limbs, Extended Minds and the Decline of Religiosity: A Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspective. Open Theology, 3(1), 630–641. Relevant for Hypothesis #1 and 4.Schaap, J., & Aupers, S. (2017). ‘Gods in World of Warcraft exist’: Religious reflexivity and the quest for meaning in online computer games. New Media & Society, 19(11), 1744–1760. Relevant for Hypotheses #1 and 4.
• Schiavone, S. R., & Gervais, W. M. (2017). Atheists. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(12). Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Schnabel, L. (2017). Gendered religiosity. Review of Religious Research. 59, 547-556. Relevant for Hypothesis #2 and #4.
• Schwadel, P. (2018). Cross-national variation in the social origins and religious consequences of religious non-affiliation. Social Science Research. 70, 254-270. Relevant for Hypotheses 3-5.
• Sebestény, A., & Emmons, N. (2017). Balinese Hindus’ afterlife beliefs as stable constructs: An effect of high frequency domestic rituals. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 17(5), 437–462. Relevant for Hypothesis #3.
• Shepherd, Steven, Richard P. Eibach, and Aaron C. Kay. (2017). “‘One Nation Under God’: The System‐Justifying Function of Symbolically Aligning God and Government.” Political Psychology 38, no. 5: 703–720. Relevant for Hypotheses #3 and #4.
• Simpson, A., Rios, K, & Cowgill, C. (2017). Godless in essence? Psychological essentialism, theistic meta-beliefs, and anti-atheist prejudice. Personality and Individual Differences 119, 35-45. Relevant for Hypothesis #5. 
• Skali, Ahmed. (2017). Moralizing gods and armed conflict. Journal of Economic Psychology. 63, 184-198. Relevant for Hypotheses #3 and #5.
• Smith, Christian. Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters. Princeton University Press, 2017. Relevant for Hypotheses #1-5.
• Speed, D., Coleman III, T. J., & Langston, J. (2018). What Do You Mean,“What Does It All Mean?” Atheism, Nonreligion, and Life Meaning. SAGE Open, 8(1). Relevant for Hypothesis #4.
• Visuri, I. (2018). Rethinking autism, theism, and atheism. Archive for the Psychology of Religion (2018), 1-31. Relevant for Hypothesis #1. 
• Yeniaras, V. and T. N. Akarsu. (2017). Religiosity and life satisfaction: A multi-dimensional approach.  Journal of Happiness Studies. 18, 1815-1840. Relevant for Hypothesis #5. 
• Ying, Z., S. Liu, S. Bao and J. Zhou. (2017). Religious diversity and regional development in China. China Economic Review 46, 1-9. Relevant for Hypothesis #3. 
• Zuckerman, M, C. Li & E. Diener. (2018). Religion as an exchange system: The interchangeability of God and government in a provider role. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 1-13 Relevant for Hypotheses 3-5. 

 

 

Other resources in support of TRT hypotheses (a work in progress)

 

Hypothesis #1: the mechanisms that produce theistic credulity or anthropomorphic promiscuity - the tendency to appeal to the causal efficacy of supernatural agents when trying to make sense of the world - are the result of naturally selected cognitive biases that engender mistaken attributions of intentionality as part of a phylogenetically inherited error management strategy. 

 

 

Hypothesis #2: the mechanisms that produce theistic conformity or sociographic prudery - the tendency to appeal to the moral normativity of supernatural authorities when trying to act sensibly in society - are the result of naturally selected coalitional biases that engender suspicion of out-group members as part of a phylogenetically inherited risk management strategy.

 

 

Hypothesis #3: the mechanisms that produce anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery are often reciprocally reinforcing. 

 

 

Hypothesis #4: each of the first three hypotheses can be inverted. In other words, theistic credulity and conformity biases are decreased as individuals learn (or are psychologically disposed and/or contextually cued) to contest the mechanisms that engender anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery, respectively, and the decrementation of one sort of bias often decrements the other.   

 

 

Hypothesis #5: "religion" (understood as the interaction and integration of theistic credulity and conformity biases) is not as salutogenic as early research in positive psychology and intergroup conflict studies suggested. 

 

• Kramer, S. & A Shariff. (2016). Religion, deception, and self-deception, in Cheating, Corruption, and Concealment: The Roots of Dishonesty, ed. by J-". van Prooijen and Paul A. M. van Lange, Cambridge University Press, 233-249. This chapter presents findings that show how "intrinsic" religiosity is correlated with impression management and self-deception. "...the only consistently demonstrated honesty-related difference between people with no or relatively low belief and those with higher belief is the underlying propensity to self-enhance. Beliefs in gods, afterlives, and other supernatural concepts may offer yet another way in which humans deceive themselves to aggrandize their lives and selves" (p. 245). 

 

• Leak, G. & S. Fish. (1989). Religious orientation, impression management, and self-deception: Toward a clarification of the link between religiosity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28/3: 355-359. This article presents empirical research that paints "a picture of intrinsically religious person as those who have tendencies toward distortions in the way they see themselves and in the way they intentionally present themselves to others." (p. 358). 

 

• Bruynell, Mellisa. (2012). The dangers of modern day belief in the supernatural: International persecution of witches and albinos. Suffolk Transnational Law Review, 35/2, 393-420. This article reports on the torture and killing of vulnerable members of populations around the world as a result of prejudice based on supernatural beliefs.