Supernatural punishment belief is a naturally selected evolutionary adaptation
Evidence
I have outlined a cultural evolutionary framework that gives a central role to supernatural monitoring and punishment in the emergence of large-scale cooperation. Readers might have noticed similarities between this idea and another proposal by Jesse Bering, Dominic Johnson, and their colleagues, an adaptationist account that is often called the supernatural punishment hypothesis. This view, which has generated a great deal of interest and research, argues that a belief in gods as supernatural police is a naturally selected adaptation. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 440
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Distinguishes the supernatural punishment hypothesis (adaptationist) from Norenzayan’s cultural-evolutionary Big God account—an important theoretical distinction.
Related
- Cultural selection and genetic adaptation theories of supernatural punishment differ fundamentally (similarity 0.88)
- Gods grow more moral as anonymity spreads, not by genetic design (similarity 0.84)
- Supernatural punishment psychology is agreed upon despite evolutionary disputes (similarity 0.83)
- Gods’ moral involvement grows with group size culturally (similarity 0.81)
- Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming (similarity 0.80)
- Supernatural monitoring evolves to solve cooperation problems in large anonymous groups (similarity 0.79)