Signals of sincere belief identify trustworthy cooperation partners

Evidence

Because cooperators seek other cooperators, it follows that, all else being equal, believers would be more likely to trust other believers who also sincerely believe themselves to be under supernatural monitoring. Therefore, signals of sincere belief in Big Gods would be a reliable indicator of who to cooperate with. Prosocial religious groups would not cohere if it weren’t for the fact that people are quite discriminating about their cooperation partners. Genuine devotion to the same supernatural deity may have therefore lowered monitoring costs and fostered cooperation, especially in communities spread across geographic and ethnic boundaries. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 206

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: This is the ‘partner choice’ mechanism (Baumard et al.) the reader wants to test against the fumi-e’s destruction of public displays of belief.

Related

• Belief in supernatural watchers enables stranger-to-stranger cooperation (similarity 0.91)
• Supernatural monitoring by any religion can extend trust beyond one’s own community (similarity 0.83)
• Religious trust extends to any outgroup holding supernatural sanctioning beliefs (similarity 0.83)
• Observable religious commitment signals produce trust among believers (similarity 0.81)
• Big Gods and large-scale cooperation mutually reinforced each other’s expansion (similarity 0.81)
• Religious belief withers when governments provide the cooperation religion once supplied. (similarity 0.80)
• Fear of god functioned historically as the sole trust mechanism among strangers (similarity 0.79)
• Secular institutions substitute for Big Gods by enforcing stranger cooperation (similarity 0.79)
• Costly religious signals induce cooperation without spreading belief (similarity 0.79)
• Supernatural beliefs both motivate and signal prosocial intention across social contexts (similarity 0.79)
• Moralizing supernatural agents help sustain cooperation at scales beyond natural limits (similarity 0.79)
• Gods and governments may be interchangeable enforcers of cooperation (similarity 0.79)
• Omniscient watchful gods enabled cooperation among anonymous strangers (similarity 0.79)
• Strong secular rule of law sustains trust and cooperation without religion (similarity 0.78)
• Small transparent groups sustain cooperation without moralizing supernatural agents (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Visible honesty signals are what keep cooperation stable in populations #corroborates (0.90) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 621