week 8 readings

Question 1

Extreme Rituals Promote Pro Sociality

Xygakatas et al., 2012

Answer 1

Intense religious rituals promote social cohesion and cooperation within groups.

correlational evidence with economic games have supported this but the current study is one of the few to find evidence in naturalistic settings outside of the lab

The study observes Hindu religious rituals in the festival of Thaipusam in Mauritius. Low-intensity rituals include singing and collective prayer. High-intensity rituals include piercings, hooking offerings into the skin, carrying heavy objects, and walking barefoot to the temple.

Hypothesis:
1. predicted that higher intensity rituals
would be associated with greater
generosity in both observers and
participators.
2. high-intensity rituals will be associated
with higher patriarchal identity (subgroup
identification)
3. empathetic effects will occur in observers
of high-intensity rituals.

Method:
participants were asked to complete an online survey, they were given 200 rupees and asked with they would like to give any of that money back to the temple anonomously (economic game; naturalistic donation task).

Variables:
Prosociality: behavior (charity) and attitudes (social identification; patriarchal-ethnic-religious group = Hindu and subordinate inclusive national identity = Maurtitian).
Religiosity: measured in terms of belief and temple attendance.
Pain: survey questions how much pain was felt in the ritual (perceived and real; observer and participant).

Results:
low-intensity participants donated less than half the money back to the temple, high-intensity observers donated the most back, and high-intensity participants the second-highest back (HI > LI).

Pain was correlated with donations (the higher the perceived pain the greater the donation of money back to the temple).

low-intensity groups expressed the most patriarchal identities (Hindu). Higher intensity groups favored inclusive social identity (Mauritian). greater the perceived pain the more inclusive their identities.

Conclusion:
costly high-intensity rituals display individuals’ commitment to the group and are preserved via natural selection for its impact on prosocial behaviors and attitudes within the wider community.

Question 2

What is the central idea of religious signaling?

Answer 2

Non-arbitrary religious costs function as signals of altruistic intention.

signals are not arbitrary because they convey a specific meaning and are hard to fake.

Question 3

How might an ordinary altruist be identified?

Answer 3

If an individual has a history of reciprocity

Question 4

Why is religious belief a puzzle for natural selection?

Answer 4

Natural selection would favor adaptations that sharpen perception and not distort it.

Question 5

What do Xygalatas et al (2013) discover about the charity of performers and observers of the high-intensity ritual?

Answer 5

There was no significant difference in rupees donated between those who experienced or perceived pain.

Question 6

What is the appeal of the Spandrel theory of religion?

Answer 6

It is parsimonious and trades complex functional explanations for simplistic cognitive explanations.

Question 7

“A solitary organism would have no need to wear her emotions on her sleeve” (Bulbulia 2004, p.27). What does this imply about emotions?

Answer 7

Emotions are signals to manipulate audiences

Question 8

What do Xygalatas et al (2013) mention about the relationship between social identification and donations in Mauritius?

Answer 8

Social identification (both) and donations were not associated with each other.

Question 9

What is the difficulty of the traditional adaptationist account of religion?

Answer 9

Reigious cooperation requires costly commitments and natural selection could have opted for a more reproductively inxpensive source of cooperation.

Question 10

What does signaling theory argue is the central function of supernatural cognition?

Answer 10

NOT to facilitate reciprocal altruism.

Strcitly efficient Strategy (cooperation) because reciprocal altruism is different from religious altruism and the function of religious belief is to turn strictly efficient cooperation into the nash equilibrium.

Question 11

What is the Spandrel theory of religion?

Answer 11

Religion is a byproduct generated by the interaction of ordinary mental systems and contextual cues.

Question 12

Consider the activities at public religious rituals. Why might public religious rituals affect cooperative sentiments?

Answer 12

Participants are peceived as making an altruistic sacrafice on behlaf of the group and its sacred values.

Question 13

What is a Nash equilibrium?

Answer 13

A strategy that yields the highest payoff given the other players’ best strategy remains unchanged.

Question 14

Consider the Prisoner’s Dilemma. When might defection NOT be an optimal strategy?

Answer 14

When both individuals can ensure they are interacting with cooperators.

Question 15

Religious believers typically act under the watchful eye of a just supernatural adjudicator with the power to punish unjust behaviors. On the flip side, what does signaling theory predict for unjust gods?

Answer 15

As acting piously will bring misfortune just as not acting piously, religions will project the benefits of piety into the future.

Question 16

What were Xygalatas et al’s (2013) general findings for ritual effects on prosociality?

Answer 16

There was a substantial difference in prosocial responses between participants of low-ordeal rituals and high ordeal rituals.

Question 17

What is the traditional adaptationist account of religious cognition?

Answer 17

The reproductive benefits of religious cognition are greater than its costs thereby allowing selection for religious beliefs.

Question 18

Non-supernatural policing can be employed to enforce cooperation. What is the difficulty of this solution?

Answer 18

The cost of management increases proportionally to the system’s efficiency.

Question 19

What does signaling theory predict for the cooperation outcomes of those who partake in high-cost religious rituals compared to low-cost rituals?

Answer 19

Wrong: cooperation for high cost relative to low cost but only for inclusive identity.

Wrong: cooperation only for high cost, and would be more patriarchal.

Correct: cooperation is relatively more for high cost, but would be patriarchal.

Question 20

What differentiates religious emotions from everyday emotions?

Answer 20

Linked to god motivations.

Question 21

Which of the following is an example of an easy-to-fake signal?

Answer 21

Words/verbal declarations of belief.

Question 22

According to Bulbia (2004), what is a criticism of the spandrel theory?

Answer 22

Underestimates the cost of commitment.

Question 23

What does signaling theory predict about attitudes to religious rituals?

Answer 23

Not; only high-cost rituals are considered obligatory and failures to participate are viewed as defects.

ALL religious rituals are important (high/low cost) people would not be considered a good coreligionist if they only engaged in high-cost rituals.

Question 24

What is the difference between religious altruism compared to ordinary reciprocal altruism?

Answer 24

Not the use of emotions, belief, and not just past behaviors.

Not past behaviors. Only reciprocal altruism uses past behaviors to determine who is worthy of help. Religious altruism looks at belief and public displays of their belief/commitment (high or low-cost signal).

Question 25

What are the pre-requisites for religion?

1. Belief
2. Mistrust heretics
3. Emotional display
4. Public displays of commitments
5. Aggression
6. High-cost rituals

Answer 25

Belief, emotional displays, public displays of commitments.

mistrust of heretics, aggression are outcomes of religious beliefs.

high-cost rituals are not necessary for signaling a commitment to religion. If you only displayed high-cost rituals and not low cost then you wouldn’t be a very good coreligionist.

Question 26

Is religion a form of self-deception?

Answer 26

TRIVERS (2001) argues that the machinery of self-deception, the active distortion of reality, has arisen as an anti-detection technology. We deceive ourselves so as better to deceive others. It is worth pointing out, however, that if deception is thoroughgoing, the signaling organism for all intents and purposes really will possess the relevant motivations. Religion is, at any rate, a form of self-deception in TRIVERS’s sense: an active distortion of information flow within an organism to advance its reproductive interests through the manipulation of an audience. Whether these beliefs attach to reality is a separate question from how an individual will act in the future, in light of those beliefs.