Credible displays of religious devotion trigger belief cascades and group-level competitive advantage

Evidence

There are three aspects to this dynamic that are relevant to understanding how these CREDs help build prosocial religions. First, when religious leaders’ actions advertise underlying belief with sincerity, their actions energize witnesses and help their beliefs to spread in a group. If, on the other hand, they are not willing to make a significant demonstration of the sincerity of their belief, then observers—even children—may withhold their own commitment. Second, when people believe, they are more likely to perform similar displays themselves. This means that beliefs backed up by extravagant behaviors have the potential to cascade and spread in a population of minds. Third, extravagant displays often are altruistic acts toward other ingroup members. These acts of altruism further escalate the level of ingroup cooperation in prosocial religious groups. Therefore, the fifth principle of supernatural monitoring ensures that belief in supernatural monitors that are backed by credible displays will be more likely to influence witnesses (cultural learners), meaning that these belief-behavior complexes are more likely to enjoy a transmission advantage in the cultural marketplace. In turn, groups that adopt such practices would be expected to outcompete groups that fail to find alternative mechanisms to ensure trust and solidarity. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 335

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the Big God mechanism the reader is testing against the fumi-e trampling: the public credible display is the exact mechanism the Japanese authorities weaponize against Rodrigues — a hostile inversion worth connecting to Baumard’s partner-choice destruction.
• DEFINE: Clarifies what CREDs (credibility-enhancing displays) are and the three causal channels by which they spread prosocial religion.