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Biological Theory 5 (2010) 18-30

The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religio

Scott Atran 1, Joseph Henrich 2

(2010)

Understanding religion requires explaining why supernatural beliefs, devotions, and rituals are both universal and variable across cultures, and why religion is so often associated with both large-scale cooperation and enduring group conflict. Emerging lines of research suggest that these oppositions result from the convergence of three processes. First, the interaction of certain reliably developing cognitive processes, such as our ability to infer the presence of intentional agents, favors—as an evolutionary by-product—the spread of certain kinds of counterintuitive concepts. Second, participation in rituals and devotions involving costly displays exploits various aspects of our evolved psychology to deepen people's commitment to both supernatural agents and religious communities. Third, competition among societies and organizations with different faith-based beliefs and practices has increasingly connected religion with both within-group prosociality and between-group enmity. This connection has strengthened dramatically in recent millennia, as part of the evolution of complex societies, and is important to understanding cooperation and conflict in today's world.

1 :	Institut Jean-Nicod (IJN)
	CNRS : UMR8129 – Ecole normale supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris – École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS]
2 :	Dept of Economics & Dept of Psychology
	University of British Columbia

Thématiques scientifiques

:

Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Philosophie Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Linguistique Sciences cognitives Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Economies et finances Sciences de l'Homme et Société Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Science politique Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Sociologie

Mots-clés : by-product hypothesis – credibility enhancing displays – cultural 40 transmission – cooperation – group competition – high gods – min

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Contributeur : Scott Atran <>

Soumis le : Jeudi 22 Juillet 2010, 21:01:08

Dernière modification le : Vendredi 23 Juillet 2010, 14:21:27