Intergroup warfare, not internal conflict or mating competition, drives costly male rites.
Evidence
Richard Sosis and his colleagues looked at this issue from a different angle. They wanted to know whether the prevalence of warfare is linked to another form of group solidarity: participation in costly rites that involve terror, trauma, and painful scarification. In their analyses of nonindustrial societies, they found that the greater the participation in warfare, the more likely there are costly rites for males. They carefully ruled out other possible explanations—for example, they found that costly rites were not predicted by the frequency of violent internal conflict within groups, only conflict between groups mattered. Neither did intensity of mating competition among men explain the frequency of these costly rites; therefore, these costly behaviors are unlikely to be signals for mating quality. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 460
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Proximate analog to the fumi-e trampling: a costly public act (apostasy) binding or severing group membership, in the reader’s Baumard/partner-choice frame.
Related
- Warfare between groups predicts costly male rites, internal conflict and mating do not (similarity 0.94)
- Costly male rites spread via cultural group selection when they improve fighting success (similarity 0.90)
- Costly rites mobilize male solidarity and spread culturally through intergroup competition. (similarity 0.85)
- Moralizing gods and costly rituals coevolved to boost in-group cooperation and out-compete rivals. (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Costly rites mobilize male solidarity and spread culturally through intergroup competition.
#corroborates(0.95) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 461 - Big Gods and costly rituals coevolved to enhance cooperation and outcompete rivals
#corroborates(0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 431 - Exposure to intergroup conflict determines a population’s mix of self-interest and self-sacrifice.
#expands(0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 462 - Camptown sexual exploitation results from deliberate human decisions, not natural male behavior.
#contradicts(0.75) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 554