Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 322; no. 5898; pp. 58 - 62
• Main Authors: Norenzayan, Ara, Shariff, Azim F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 03.10.2008; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Altruism; Beneficence; Boundary conditions; Christianity; Communes; Contemporary period; Cooperative Behavior; Cross cultural studies; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Cultural Evolution; Cultural groups; Culture; Deities; Empirical evidence; Evolutionary biology; Experimental psychology; Games, Experimental; General subjects; Group Processes; group size; Helping Behavior; History and sciences of religions; Humans; Motivation; occupations; prediction; Prosocial behavior; Religion; Religion & psychology; Religiosity; Religious behavior; Review; Secularism; Social Behavior; Social Responsibility; Social sciences; Sociological studies; surveys; Transponders; Trust; We they distinction; Psychology of religion; Behavior; Sociology of religion; Charity; God; Religiosity

We examine empirical evidence for religious prosociality, the hypothesis that religions facilitate costly behaviors that benefit other people. Although sociological surveys reveal an association between self-reports of religiosity and prosociality, experiments measuring religiosity and actual prosoc...