Religions evolved to sprinkle situational reminders because internalized monitoring is hard to sustain

Evidence

This suggests that religious situations are a more reasonable trust cue than religious persons. It makes more sense to trust that believers who are in church will be less likely to cheat and steal than believers who are at an anonymous intersection. Or as a field study showed (discussed in chapter 3) in Morocco, it would be reasonable to “trust” the Muslim call to prayers as an institution that elicits prosocial acts among the devout. Recognizing this, prosocial religions sprinkle religious reminders at regular time intervals and key places—like call to prayers in Muslim communities, Buddha Eyes in Tibet and Nepal, or church bells or ubiquitous signs of the cross in Christianity. But these religious situations are not unique elicitors of trust—it would be also reasonable to trust secular institutions that encourage nice behavior toward others. However, before the advent of the relatively recent secular institutions, religious cues reflected the wisdom of cultural evolution to harness the power of the situation, rather than rely on internalized chronic awareness of supernatural monitoring, a feat that is difficult to obtain. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 252

Categorization

• XREF: The fumi-e trampling directly counters this evolved strategy — Japanese authorities weaponize the same situational-reminder channel in reverse, making public display destroy rather than build trust.
• ADDENDUM: Could support the Grafting article’s logic about religious infrastructure as underused worldbuilding — though this links more cleanly to the psychological mechanism being mapped.