Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

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

  • Published:
Biological Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alcorta CS, Sosis R (2005) Ritual, emotion, and sacred symbols: The evolution of religion as an adaptive complex. Hurnan Nature 1: 323–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen-Arave W, Gurven M, Hill K (2008) Reciprocal altruism, rather than kin selection, maintains nepotistic food transfers on an Ache reservation. Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 305–318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson B (1991) The Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyle M, Beit-Hallahmi B (2000) The Social Psychology of Religion. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S (1998) Folkbiology and the anthropology of science: Cognitive universals and cultural particulars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21: 547–609.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S (2002) In Gods We Trust. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S (2003) Genesis of suicide terrorism. Science 299: 1534–1539.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S (2010) Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. New York: Ecco/Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S, Axelrod R, Davis R (2007) Sacred barriers to conflict resolution. Science 317: 1039–1040.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S, Medin DL (2008) The native mind and the cultural construction of nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S, Medin D, Ross N, Lynch E, Vapnarsky V, Ek’ EU, Coley J, Timura C, Baran M (2002) Folkecology, cultural epidemiology, and the spirit of the commons: A garden experiment in the Maya lowlands, 1991–2001. Current Anthropology 43: 421–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S, Norenzayan A (2004) Religion’s evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 713–770.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atran S, Sperber D (1991) Learning without teaching. In: Culture, Schooling and Psychological Development (Tolchinsky-Landsmann L, ed), 39–55. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bargh JA, Chartrand TL (1999) The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist 54: 462–479.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen S (1995) Mindblindness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett JL (1998) Cognitive constraints on Hindu concepts of the divine. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 608–619.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett JL (2000) Exploring the natural foundations of religion. Trends in Cognitive Science 4: 29–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett JL (2004) Why Would Anyone Believe in God? Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett JL, Keil FC (1996) Conceptualizing a nonnatural entity: Anthropomorphism in God concepts. Cognitive Psychology 31: 219–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett JL, Nyhof MA (2001) Spreading nonnatural concepts. Journal of Cognition and Culture 1: 69–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck W (1992) Aboriginal preparation of Cycads seeds in Australia. Economic Botany 46: 133–147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloom P, Veres C (1999) The perceived intentionality of groups. Cognition 71: B1–B9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Gintis H, Bowles S, Richerson PJ (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 3531–3535.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson P (1988) The evolution of reciprocity in sizable groups. Journal of Theoretical Biology 132: 337–356.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson P (2002) Group beneficial norms can spread rapidly in a structured population. Journal of Theoretical Biology 215: 287–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson J, Henrich J (n.d.) Rapid cultural adaptation can facilitate the evolution of large-scale cooperation. Manuscript. University of British Columbia.

  • Boyer P (2001) Religion Explained. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyer P, Ramble C (2001) Cognitive templates for religious concepts: Cross-cultural evidence for recall of counter-intuitive representations. Cognitive Science 25: 535–564.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell J (1974) The Mythic Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csibra G, Gergely G, Bíró S, Koós O, Brockbank M (1999) Goal attribution without agency cues. Cognition 72: 237–267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currie TE, Mace R (2009) Political complexity predicts the spread of ethnolinguistic groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106: 7339–7344.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dehghani M, Iliev R, Sachdeva S, Atran S, Ginges J, Medin D (2009) Emerging sacred values: The Iranian nuclear program. Judgment and Decision Making 4: 990–993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diesendruck G, Haber L (2009) God’s categories: The effect of religiosity on children’s teleological and essentialist beliefs about categories. Cognition 110: 100–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkheim E (1995) Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ensminger J (1997) Transaction costs and Islam: Explaining conversion in Africa. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 153: 4–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fehr E, Fischbacher U (2003) The nature of human altruism. Nature 425: 785–791.

    Google Scholar 

  • Festinger L, Riecken H, Schachter S (1956) When Prophecy Fails. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Firth R (1963) Offering and sacrifice. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 93: 12–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishman A, Goldschmidt Y (1990) The orthodox kibbutzim and economic success. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29: 505–511.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freston P (2001) Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazzaniga MS, Ivry RB, Mangun GR (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience, 3rd ed. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gervais W, Henrich J (forthcoming) The Zeus problem: Why representational content biases cannot explain faith in gods. Journal of Cognition and Culture.

  • Ginges J, Atran S, Medin DL, Shikaki K (2007) Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104: 7357–7360.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ginges J, Hansen I, Norenzayan A (2009) Religious and popular support for suicide attacks. Psychological Science 20: 224–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gintis H, Smith EA, Bowles S (2001) Costly signaling and cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 213: 103–119.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greeley A (1975) The Sociology of the Paranormal. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guthrie S (1993) Faces in the Clouds. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper L, Sanders KM (1975) The effect of adults’ eating on young children’s acceptance of unfamiliar foods. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 20: 206–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris P, Pasquini ES, Duke S, Asscher JJ, Pons F (2006) Germs and angels: The role of testimony in young children’s ontology. Developmental Science 9: 76–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heider F, Simmel S (1944) An experimental study of apparent behavior. American Journal of Psychology 57: 243–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2004) Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 53: 3–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2008) A cultural species. In: Explaining Culture Scientifically (Brown M, ed), 184–210. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2009) The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior 30: 244–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R (2001) Why people punish defectors: Weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Journal of Theoretical Biology 208: 79–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R (2002) On modeling cognition and culture: Why replicators are not necessary for cultural evolution. Journal of Cognition and Culture 2: 87–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R, Bowles S, Camerer C, Fehr E, Gintis H, McElreath R, Alvard M, Barr A, Ensminger J, Hill K, Gil-White F, Gurven M, Marlowe F, Patton JQ, Smith N, Tracer D (2005) “Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28: 795–815.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R, Richerson P (2008) Five misunderstandings about cultural evolution. Human Nature 10: 253–289.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Ensminger J, McElreath R, Barr A, Barrett C, Bolyanatz A, Cardenas JC, Gurven M, Gwako E, Henrich N, Lesorogol C, Marlowe F, Tracer F, Ziker J (2010) Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327: 1480–1484.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Gil-White F (2001) The evolution of prestige. Evolution and Human Behavior 22: 165–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, McElreath R (2003) The evolution of cultural evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 123–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich NS, Henrich J (2007) Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horner V, Whiten A (2005) Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees and children. Animal Cognition 8: 164–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hruschka D, Henrich J (2006) Friendship, cliquishness, and the emergence of cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 239: 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irons W (1996) In our own self-image. Skeptic 4(2): 50–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson D (2005) God’s punishment and public goods. Human Nature 16: 410–446.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson G (1987) In the name of the fatherland: An analysis of kin term usage in patriotic speech and literature. International Political Science Review 8: 165–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kapogiannis D, Barbey AK, Su M, Zamboni G, Krueger F, Grafman J (2009) Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106: 4876–4881.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keil F (1979) Semantic and Conceptual Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keleman D (2004) Are children “intuitive theists”? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science 15: 295–301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khaldûn I (2005) The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein RG (1989) The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kluckholn C, Leighton D (1946) The Navajo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee R (1979) The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society. New York: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy R (1957) The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebenberg L (1990) The Art of Tracking. Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyons DE, Young AG, Keil FC (2007) The hidden structure of overimitation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104: 19751–19756.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malley B (2004) How the Bible Works: An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcus J, Flannery KV (2004) The coevolution of ritual and society: New C-14 dates from ancient Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 101: 18257–18261.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks L (2004) Sacred practices in highly religious families. Family Process 43: 217–231.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mathew S, Boyd R (2009) When does optional participation allow the evolution of cooperation? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 276: 1167–1174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazar N, Ariely D (2006) Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 25: 117–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • McElreath R, Boyd R, Richerson PJ (2003) Shared norms and the evolution of ethnic markers. Current Anthropology 44: 122–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeil WH (1982) Pursuit of Power. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeil WH (1991) The Rise of the West. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan A, Atran S, Faulkner J, Schaller M (2006) Memory and mystery: The cultural selection of minimally counterintuitive narratives. Cognitive Science 30: 531–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan A, Hansen IG (2006) Belief in supernatural agents in the face of death. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32: 174–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan A, Shariff AF (2008) The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science 322: 58–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris P, Inglehart R (2004) Sacred and Secular. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nowak MA, Sigmund K (2005) Indirect reciprocity. Nature 437: 1291–1298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panchanathan K, Boyd R (2003) A tale of two defectors: The importance of standing for the evolution of indirect reciprocity. Journal of Theoretical Biology 224: 115–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panchanathan K, Boyd R (2004) Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem. Nature 432: 499–502.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips A (1970) Ancient Israel’s Criminal Law: A New Approach to the Decalogue. New York: Schocken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pyysiäinen I (2003) Buddhism, religion, and the concept of “God.” Numen—International Review for the History of Religions 50: 147–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rakoczy H, Wameken F, Tomasello M (2008) The sources of normativity: Young children’s awareness of the normative structure of games. Developmental Psychology 44: 875–881.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rappaport RA (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson P, Boyd R (2005) Not by Genes Alone. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roes FL (1995) The size of societies, stratification, and belief in high gods supportive of human morality. Politics and the Life Sciences 14: 73–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roes FL, Raymond M (2003) Belief in moralizing gods. Evolution and Human Behavior 24: 126–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruffle BJ, Sosis R (2006) Cooperation and the in-group out-group bias: A field test on Israeli kibbutz members and city residents. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60: 147–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shariff AF, Norenzayan A (2007) God is watching you. Psychological Science 18: 803–809.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith C (1996) Disruptive Religion. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosis R, Alcorta C (2003) Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 264–274.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosis R, Bressler ER (2003) Cooperation and commune longevity: A test of the costly signaling theory of religion. Cross-Cultural Research 37: 211–239.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosis R, Kress H, Boster J (2007) Scars for war. Evolution and Human Behavior 28: 234–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosis R, Ruffle BJ (2003) Religious ritual and cooperation: Testing for a relationship on Israeli religious and secular kibbutzim. Current Anthropology 44: 713–722.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D (1996) Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D, Premack D, Premack A, eds (1995) Causal Cognition. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stark R (1997) The Rise of Christianity. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweeney M (2001) King Josiah of Judah. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tetlock P (2003) Thinking the unthinkable: Sacred values and taboo cognitions. Trends in Cognitive Science 7: 320–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trainor L, Trehub S (1992) The development of referential meaning in music. Music Perception 9: 455–470.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehouse H (2004) Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitson JA, Galinsky AD (2008) Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science 322: 115–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whythe WF (1993) Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson DS (2002) Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiltermuth SS, Heath C (2009) Synchrony and cooperation. Psychological Science 20: 1–5.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris, France

    Scott Atran

  2. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

    Scott Atran

  3. ISR and Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Scott Atran

  4. Department of Economics and Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Joseph Henrich

Authors
  1. Scott Atran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Joseph Henrich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott Atran.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Atran, S., Henrich, J. The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions. Biol Theory 5, 18–30 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00018

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00018

Keywords

Search

Navigation