Prosocial religions as folk-technologies of mutual policing

Léo Fitouchi (), Manvir Singh, Jean-Baptiste André and Nicolas Baumard
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Léo Fitouchi: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Manvir Singh: IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse
Jean-Baptiste André: Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
Nicolas Baumard: Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

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Abstract: Why do humans believe in moralizing gods? Leading accounts argue that these beliefs evolved because they help societies grow and promote group cooperation. Yet recent evidence suggests that beliefs in moralizing gods are not limited to large societies and might not have strong effects on cooperation. Here, we propose that beliefs in moralizing gods develop because individuals shape supernatural beliefs to achieve strategic goals in within-group interactions. People have a strategic interest in controlling others' cooperation, either to extort benefits from them or to gain reputational benefits for protecting the public good. Moreover, they believe, based on their folk-psychology, that others would be less likely to cheat if they feared supernatural punishment. Thus, people endorse beliefs in moralizing gods to manipulate others into cooperating. Prosocial religions emerge from a dynamic of mutual monitoring, in which each individual, lacking confidence in the cooperativeness of conspecifics, attempts to incentivize others' cooperation by endorsing beliefs in supernatural punishment. We show how variations of this incentive structure explain the variety of cultural attractors toward which supernatural punishment converges, including extractive religions that extort benefits from exploited individuals, prosocial religions geared toward mutual benefit, and forms of prosocial religion where belief in moralizing gods is itself a moral duty. We review evidence for nine predictions of this account and use it to explain the decline of prosocial religions in modern societies. Supernatural punishment beliefs seem endorsed as long as people believe them necessary to ensure others' cooperation, regardless of their objective effectiveness in doing so.

Keywords: Religion; Supernatural punishment; Moralizing gods; Evolutionary psychology; Cultural evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02-10
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Published in Psychological Review, 2025, ⟨10.1037/rev0000531⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04981251

DOI: 10.1037/rev0000531

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