Market integration and Big God religion independently predict prosocial generosity cross-culturally

Evidence

Henrich found that the more people in that group were accustomed to dealing with strangers to make a living, the greater their prosocial tendencies. The other significant factor was religion: after controlling for various demographic and economic variables, participation in a world religion with a Big God (defined as Christian or Muslim) increased offers in the Dictator Game by 6 and in the Ultimatum Game by 10 percentile points (when the stake was standardized at 100). — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 185

Categorization

• XREF: The market-integration finding parallels Milgrom’s argument that trade institutions emerged to sustain cooperation among strangers — both point to stranger-interaction as a driver of cooperative norms.