Belief in the supernatural is a cultural universal. While there is considerable variation in supernatural belief systems across cultures, some form of belief in gods, spirits, and similar phenomena occurs in all cultures.  George Peter Murdock, a major intellectual founder of HRAF, identified a list of cultural universals which include “propitiation of supernatural beings” in “The Common Denominator of Cultures” (Murdock, 1945). As discussed in the Religion summary module of Explaining Human Culture, there are a wide variety of theories to explain why supernatural belief systems are culturally universal. While religion is a cultural universal, there is substantial diversity in how religions are structured, the importance of ancestor spirits, whether gods and spirits are concerned with morality, and the number and type of religious practitioners. These and many more questions about cultural variation have been addressed using cross-cultural research methods.        Anthropologists and psychologists have tried to explain how human beings have made attempts to interpret the workings of the natural and social worlds, including commonly asked questions. What is the cause of thunder and lightning? Why do natural disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes occur? Why were your possessions stolen? Why did your village get attacked by another group? Lacking clear explanations, humans have often attributed these phenomena to supernatural powers. For example, a natural disaster could be explained by referencing an angry god, while a bountiful harvest could be indicative of a benevolent god.A team of researchers comprised of Joshua Conrad Jackson, Danica Dillon, Brock Bastian, Joseph Watts, William Buckner, Nicholas DiMaggio, and Kurt Gray published an article in Nature Human Behaviour using ethnographic data from eHRAF World Cultures that compared supernatural belief systems (Jackson et al., 2023) to examine how humans use the supernatural to try to understand their world. Here is an abstract for the article from HRAF’s open-access database Explaining Human Culture:

The article examines whether cultural groups tend to use supernatural beliefs more to explain natural phenomena or social phenomena. Analysis of ethnographic text from 114 diverse societies reveals that supernatural explanations are more common for natural phenomena, consistent with the theory that humans tend to perceive intent and agency in the natural world. However, supernatural explanations of social phenomena were more prevalent in urbanized societies with greater social complexity and anonymity. The study highlights how people use supernatural beliefs to explain their world and how this varies across small-scale and urbanized communities.

The researchers looked at qualitative, descriptive data from eHRAF World Cultures to examine the conditions which are more likely to lead to supernatural explanations. They identified key indicators and analyzed their results to highlight statistically significant findings.

Here is a summary of the key points:

• Supernatural explanations appear to be nearly universal cross-culturally.
• Supernatural explanations are more common for natural phenomena and are less common for social phenomena.
• Supernatural explanations of social phenomena were more prevalent in urbanized societies with greater social complexity and anonymity.
• When information is ambiguous, people are more likely to believe in supernatural events.

As the providers of the world’s largest anthropological databank, HRAF resources are ideally suited to cross-cultural research. As described in Explaining Human Culture, “the vast anthropological record of human societies and cultures allows us to ask cross-cultural questions about human universals and differences. What cultural and societal features are universal? What features vary? And how can we explain these patterns? These are the fundamental questions asked by cross-cultural researchers.”

Explaining Human Culture contains reports on over 1,100 cross-cultural studies that provide scholars with tentative findings on topics of interest. EHC also includes topical summaries of what we have learned from cross-cultural research. EHC is regularly updated with new cross-cultural studies such as the one we have described here.

References

Ember, Carol R., ed. 2016. Explaining Human Culture. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files. https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc accessed February 12, 2024.

Jackson, J.C., Dillion, D., Bastian, B. et al. “Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena.” Nature Human Behaviour 7, 707–717 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01558-0

Murdock, George P., 1945. “The Common Denominator of Cultures” in The Science of Man in the World Crisis edited by Ralph Linton. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Stephen D. Glazier and Carol R. Ember. 2018. “Religion” in C. R. Ember, editor and compiler. Explaining Human Culture. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files. https://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/religion accessed February 12, 2024.

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