Perceived accountability to supernatural monitors extends trust beyond one’s own religious community

Evidence

This possibility is not a counterexplanation to the account I presented here. In fact, it complements it rather nicely because, even if atheists are believed to share one’s social norms, one might nonetheless be doubtful of the atheist’s commitment to uphold those norms given that atheists do not think they are being watched by gods. The perceived belief in supernatural monitoring, and the threat of supernatural punishment that comes with monitoring, may ensure the belief that a person of faith adheres to prosocial norms, but this motivation is seen to be lacking in an atheist. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 296 (#expands, via linked claim)

Whereas the ideomotor hypothesis posits that the link between religion and prosociality is the consequence of a cultural association, the supernatural monitoring hypothesis speaks to the more basic question of why religion might cause large-scale anonymous prosociality in the first place. If people are less prone to selfishly cheat the system when they feel watched, then beliefs in moralizing gods, who can monitor social interactions even when no humans are watching, may have been instrumental in promoting large-scale human cooperation. Once these supernatural monitors culturally spread in human populations, and practices and institutions were built to promote them, repeated activation of thoughts related to them would have led to the habitual and unconscious cognitive associations between these thoughts and prosocial behaviors, exactly as predicted by the ideomotor hypothesis. Therefore, it is more plausible that ideomotor associations between God and prosociality were the consequence of belief in supernatural monitoring, rather than being a cause. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 175 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Language and gossip created evolutionary pressure for supernatural surveillance beliefs; Trust in impartial institutions substitutes for supernatural monitoring of strangers.; Supernatural watchers and rituals jointly forged large-scale moral communities (+9 more)

Related

• Supernatural belief works through the same surveillance mechanism that generates prosocial behavior (similarity 0.90)
• Perceived lack of supernatural accountability marks atheists as specifically untrustworthy (similarity 0.87)
• Supernatural monitoring beliefs drive atheist distrust even without ingroup membership (similarity 0.87)
• Supernatural monitoring caused the God-prosociality association, not the reverse (similarity 0.86)
• Supernatural monitoring by any religion can extend trust beyond one’s own community (similarity 0.84)
• Large anonymous groups need supernatural monitoring to avoid splintering (similarity 0.84)
• Nonbelievers show mild trust toward believers while believers trust only their own (similarity 0.82)
• Atheists generally do not distrust religious believers (similarity 0.82)
• Religious belief strongly predicts distrust of atheists (similarity 0.82)
• Anti-atheist distrust stems from the belief that atheists lack supernatural accountability (similarity 0.82)
• Thoughts of watchful gods make people behave prosocially even when anonymous (similarity 0.81)
• Distrust of atheists exceeds what warmth and competence stereotypes alone predict (similarity 0.81)
• Supernatural monitoring, not moral emotions alone, scaled prosociality to mass societies (similarity 0.81)
• Supernatural beliefs both motivate and signal prosocial intention across social contexts (similarity 0.81)
• Effective secular monitoring can erode the root cause of atheist distrust. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Supernatural belief works through the same surveillance mechanism that generates prosocial behavior #corroborates (0.82)
• Supernatural monitoring beliefs drive atheist distrust even without ingroup membership #expands (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 296
• Supernatural monitoring caused the God-prosociality association, not the reverse #qualifies (0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 175
• Communal trustworthiness can seed willingness to trust in wider society #expands (0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 823