Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena

Joshua Conrad Jackson (), Danica Dillion (), Brock Bastian, Joseph Watts, William Buckner, Nicholas DiMaggio and Kurt Gray
Additional contact information
Joshua Conrad Jackson: Northwestern University
Danica Dillion: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Brock Bastian: University of Melbourne
Joseph Watts: University of Otago
William Buckner: Boston University
Nicholas DiMaggio: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kurt Gray: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Nature Human Behaviour, 2023, vol. 7, issue 5, 707-717

Abstract: Abstract Humans across the globe use supernatural beliefs to explain the world around them. This article explores whether cultural groups invoke the supernatural more to explain natural phenomena (for example, storms, disease outbreaks) or social phenomena (for example, murder, warfare). Quantitative analysis of ethnographic text across 114 geographically and culturally diverse societies found that supernatural explanations are more prevalent for natural than for social phenomena, consistent with theories that ground the origin of religious belief in a human tendency to perceive intent and agency in the natural world. Despite the dominance of supernatural explanations of natural phenomena, supernatural explanations of social phenomena were especially prevalent in urbanized societies with more socially complex and anonymous groups. Our results show how people use supernatural beliefs as explanatory tools in non-industrial societies, and how these applications vary across small-scale communities versus large and urbanized groups.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01558-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1038_s41562-023-01558-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01558-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().