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  1. The size of societies, stratification, and belief in high gods supportive of human moralityRoes, Frans L. - Politics and the Life Sciences, 1995 - 2 Hypotheses

    This article examines the belief in high gods supportive of human morality. Empirical analyses suggest that this belief is associated with larger society size independent of region and social stratification. While stratification is also associated with a belief in high gods supportive of human morality, this relationship was not independent of regional differences or society size.

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  2. Belief in moralizing godsRoes, Frans L. - Evolution and Human Behavior, 2003 - 4 Hypotheses

    This article investigates relationships among society size, war and conflict, preferred habitats, and belief in moralizing gods. The authors discuss morality and collective action in the face of natural disasters and competition for resources, theorizing that beliefs in moralizing gods could facilitate such cooperation.

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  3. The state and the supernatural: support for prosocial behaviorBrown, Christian - Structure and Dynamics, 2010 - 1 Hypotheses

    This article identifies several methodological errors in the original study or moralizing gods by Roes and Raymond (2003) and presents new multiple regression model. Results suggest that a belief in moralizing gods is spread though cultural transmission, but it is also associated with conditions such as lower agricultural potential and lower external warfare. The authors theorize that moralizing gods have functional purposes such as bolstering property rights or maintaining social hierarchy.

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  4. Population growth, society, and culture: an inventory of cross-culturally tested causal hypothesesSipes, Richard G. - , 1980 - 51 Hypotheses

    This book examines population growth rate and its correlates by testing 274 hypotheses (derived from multiple theories) with an 18-society sample. Forty-one of these hypotheses were significant at the .05 level, leading the author to accept these relationships as reflective of the real world. The 274 hypotheses are grouped into 51 broader hypotheses, and marked by (*) where relationships are significant as designated by the author or by significance p < 0.05.

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  5. Permanent group membershipRoes, Frans L. - Biological Theory, 2014 - 2 Hypotheses

    This article reviews the theory that permanent animal groups have only one sex breed outside the group in order to balance genetic diversity and group relatedness. The author theorises that since males inherit valuable membership in patrilocal/lineal societies, they are expected to be more concerned about the probability of paternity than males in matrilocal/lineal societies. Moral rules, and specifically belief in moralizing gods, are expected to reflect this difference. In other words, moralizing gods are used to restrict the sexual activity of women.

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  6. Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat DatabankTurchin, Peter - Religion, Brain & Behavior, 2023 - 4 Hypotheses

    How did moralizing religions rise, and what have they caused? The authors test the Big Gods theory, which suggests moralizing religions as a predictor of large-scale complex societies. In addition, they propose their hypothesis, which indicates that warfare, animal husbandry, and agricultural productivity have a role in producing moralizing religions. The results show no significant support for the Big Gods hypothesis. However, they support intergroup warfare, particularly military technologies and cavalry, as an important predictor of social complexity and moralizing religions. In addition, pastoralism has a moderate effect as a predictor for the rise of moralizing religions.

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  7. Moralistic supernatural punishment is probably not associated with social complexityLightner, Aaron D. - Evolution and Human Behavior, 2022 - 2 Hypotheses

    This paper examines the relationship between moralizing gods (gods that impose moral rules or punish those who break them) and social complexity. The authors argue that previous research, which relied on the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample's "moralizing high gods" variable as a proxy measure for the presence of moralizing gods, may have underestimated the presence of moralizing gods in societies. This is because the criteria used to define "moralizing high gods" are not relevant to whether a god is moralistic or punitive. The authors argue that this leads to a false positive association between moralizing gods and social complexity, and that ethnographic evidence suggests that moralizing gods are actually more prevalent in small-scale societies than had previously been thought. Future researchers, therefore, need to be careful about making assumptions about the moralizing gods of small scale societies based on "moralizing high gods", and find other ways to identify whether moralizing gods are present.

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  8. RETRACTED: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world historyWhitehouse, Harvey - Nature, 2019 - 3 Hypotheses

    Researchers tackle the moral gods hypothesis which proposes that moral gods enabled large-scale societies to evolve. They use 414 societies spanning 10,000 years in Seshat: Global History Databank and code 51 measures of social complexity and four measures of moral gods. The findings of the present study challenge the moral gods hypothesis. In the societies studied, complex societies appear to precede moral gods rather than the inverse of moral gods preceding complex societies.

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  9. Resource stress predicts changes in religious belief and increases in sharing behaviorSkoggard, Ian - Human Nature, 2020 - 6 Hypotheses

    Using multilevel modeling and society-level regressions as well as mediational path modeling, the authors test two alternative models that consider how resource stress, religious beliefs, and beyond-household food and labor sharing may be related. The resource stress model suggests that high resource stress has two consequences: 1) that such stress may lead to beliefs that gods and spirits are associated with weather and 2) that resource stress leads to more sharing. Furthermore, this model suggests that the relationship between resource stress and sharing is not mediated by god beliefs. The alternative model considered, the moralizing high god model, suggests that resource stress will lead to more sharing but it is mediated by moralizing high gods. Before testing the path models, the authors first consider the relationships between resource stress and beliefs about high gods, superior gods, and minor spirits involvement with weather. Since the results were strongest for high gods, the path models focused on high gods. The results largely support the resource stress model rather than the high god moralizing model.

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  10. Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human socialityPurzycki, Benjamin Grant - Nature, 2016 - 2 Hypotheses

    Does belief in moralizing and punitive gods promote sociality between coreligionists who are otherwise strangers? A recent dataset of behavioral economic experiment results and demographic and religious data among eight disparate populations allows the researchers to test their hypothesis of a positive association between deity's perceived interest in human morality and favorability of treatment of outsiders who share a religion. Their findings mostly support this hypothesis, which they suggest lends credibility to a theory in which religion encourages cooperation between large groups of people, and is thus a successful product of cultural evolution.

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