Belief in supernatural watchers enables stranger-to-stranger cooperation

Evidence

Because cooperators seek other cooperators, it follows that, all else being equal, believers would be more likely to trust other believers who also sincerely believe themselves to be under supernatural monitoring. Therefore, signals of sincere belief in Big Gods would be a reliable indicator of who to cooperate with. Prosocial religious groups would not cohere if it weren’t for the fact that people are quite discriminating about their cooperation partners. Genuine devotion to the same supernatural deity may have therefore lowered monitoring costs and fostered cooperation, especially in communities spread across geographic and ethnic boundaries. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 206

Categorization

• XREF: This is the partner-choice mechanism central to the reader’s analytical frame (Baumardian partner choice) — believers screening for co-believers as reliable cooperators. — connects to: An advanced alien observer functions as the big Other of the human species — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 627
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 206