Costly religious signals induce cooperation without spreading belief

Evidence

The costly signaling framework sees costly displays as reliable signals that elicit cooperation, but it does not clearly expect causal effects on levels of belief or commitment in observers. To continue with the previous example, if sacrificing for Shiva is a costly signal but not a CRED, then witnesses would be more cooperative toward the self-sacrificing Shiva-worshipper, but they would not become more dedicated Shiva-worshippers themselves. Therefore, if extravagant religious behaviors are costly signals evolved by natural selection and nothing more, exposure to these signals should induce more cooperation toward the signal-holder but should not cause greater cultural contagion. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 345

Categorization

• XREF: Sharpens the CRED-vs-costly-signal distinction directly relevant to the reader’s Baumard partner-choice analysis of the fumi-e.