Secular institutions and watchful gods are interchangeable in enforcing cooperation and trust

Evidence

In the field, economists and sociologists consistently find that people living in societies with strong secular institutions, compared to those living in societies with weak institutions, are far more trusting of other citizens, more prosocial, and more likely to punish freeriders. In the laboratory, we have seen in chapter 3 that reminders of secular concepts (for example, civic, jury, police) are as effective as reminders of a watchful God in promoting generous behavior among Canadians. This suggests an intriguing dynamic, that when it comes to enforcing cooperation and trust, gods and governments may be interchangeable. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 302

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s theoretical bridge: strong secular institutions functionally replace the Big God mechanism that Norenzayan describes elsewhere.
• SHARE: The finding that priming ‘civic, jury, police’ words boosts generosity as much as priming God is a crisp, quotable lab result for someone working on secular morality.