Found 89 Documents across 9 Pages (0.002 seconds)
  1. The cultural evolution of prosocial religionsNonrenzayan, Ara - Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2016 - 0 Hypotheses

    Researchers review the literature on the development and spread of prosocial religions and their relations to cooperative behavior, solidarity, societal size, and cultural evolution. They theorize that prosocial religions have been co-beneficially related to the development of successful large-scale cooperative societies, and the reproduction of cultural values.

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  2. 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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  3. Material security, life history, and moralistic religions: A cross cultural examinationPurzycki, Benjamin Grant - PLos ONE, 2018 - 5 Hypotheses

    This article is a quantitative analysis of 592 participants from 8 societies. The study examines a number of theories about what predicts moralistic religions, including life history theory. Findings suggest that there is no evident relationship between these life history predictions and the religious beliefs regarding moralism.

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  4. The cognitive and cultural foundations of moral behaviorPisor, Anne C. - Evolution and Human Behavior, 2018 - 2 Hypotheses

    In this two-part study, researchers first collect data from 600 people from 8 different societies in an effort to examine the character of morality cross-culturally. In the second part, participants play a game to detect honesty and responses are related to conception of morality and religious beliefs. Researchers posit that there is a cooperative nature to conception of morality and that moral culture is related to impact upon one's social life, but that this conceptualization of morality only weakly predicts cooperative behavio. The religious beliefs are stronger predictors.

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  5. Residential variation among hunter-gatherersEmber, Carol R. - Behavior Science Research, 1975 - 7 Hypotheses

    This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

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  6. Our better nature: Does resource stress predict beyond-household sharingEmber, Carol R. - Evolution and Human Behavior, 2018 - 3 Hypotheses

    The present research investigates food sharing and labor sharing practices of 98 nonindustrial societies. The aims are to: 1) document the frequency and scope of sharing, and 2) test the theory that greater sharing is adaptive in societies subject to more resource stress (including natural hazards).

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  7. The moralization bias of gods’ minds: a cross-cultural testPurzycki, Benjamin Grant - Religion, Brain, and Behavior, 2022 - 8 Hypotheses

    In this study, the authors inspect the relationship between religion, morality, and cooperation by examining the extent to which people associate their deities with moral concern. Using data from 2,228 individuals in 15 different field sites, they find that on average, people tend to ascribe at least some moral concern to their deities, and this effect is stable even after controlling for the influence of explicitly moralistic deities that these societies also worship. The authors also find that ratings of moral concern are not necessarily very high, even for deities that are typically considered to be moralistic, and that there is individual-level variation in the degree of moral concern attributed to deities. In addition, there is an individual-level correlation between how morally interested two selected deities are conceived to be and that being male or more educated decreases the likelihood of associating deities with moral concern. These findings challenge the longstanding belief that belief in moralistic deities is unique to certain societies or religions and instead suggest that the association between deities and moral concern is more widespread and variable, and suggest that the moral character of gods may be tied to cooperation within societies.

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  8. Disease and diversity in long-term economic developmentBirchenall, Javier A. - World Development, 2023 - 2 Hypotheses

    This article uses the Standard Cross-Cultural Samples to test the relationship between disease and economic growth among sub-Saharan African societies. The authors suggest that a higher disease prevalence limits social integration and economic development since pre-colonial times. The variable measuring economic growth is the complexity of large or impressive structures. The hypotheses are that 1) pathogen stress is negatively correlated to the presence of complex buildings, and 2) pathogen stress is positively correlated to increased ethnic diversity. The results support both hypotheses, and there are additional results, like 1) the negative correlation between pathogen stress and current income per capita and 2) the negative correlation between the increased ethnic diversity and current income per capita. Overall, this article shows the robust relationship between disease and economic development.

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  9. Inculcated traits and game-type combinations: a cross-cultural viewRoberts, John M. - The Humanistic and Mental Health Aspects of Sports, Exercise and Recreation, 1976 - 1 Hypotheses

    This study relates the type of games present in a society to the level of cultural complexity. Authors use a "game-type combination scale" that categorizes societies as having: 1) games of physical skill only; 2) games of physical skill and games of chance; and 3) games of physical skill, games of chance, and games of strategy. Results show a relationship between the game-type combination scale and indicators of cultural complexity.

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  10. Modernization as changes in cultural complexity: new cross-cultural measurementsDivale, William Tulio - Cross-Cultural Research, 2001 - 2 Hypotheses

    This article considers the consequences of modernization. Factor analysis is used to identify four stages of modernization: 1) changes in education, government, and trade; 2) changes in health, technology, and transportation; 3) changes in family, religion, and toilet; and 4) changes in behavior. The authors then consider five trends they expect to be associated with modernization and test whether they develop over the course of the four stages. Results indicate that these 5 trends—increased cultural complexity, female status, pacification, suicide, and social stress—are associated with only the first and fourth stages.

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