Supernatural punishment psychology is agreed upon despite evolutionary disputes
Evidence
Setting aside the issue of whether supernatural monitoring and punishment evolved genetically or culturally, or both, there is much agreement over the psychology behind it. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 449
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming (similarity 0.87)
- Supernatural monitoring caused the God-prosociality association, not the reverse (similarity 0.85)
- Supernatural punishment belief is a naturally selected evolutionary adaptation (similarity 0.83)
- Supernatural belief works through the same surveillance mechanism that generates prosocial behavior (similarity 0.83)
- Supernatural monitoring, not moral emotions alone, scaled prosociality to mass societies (similarity 0.82)
- Supernatural watcher beliefs check selfish behavior once social worlds grew transparent (similarity 0.81)
- Supernatural monitoring causally precedes ideomotor associations, not the reverse. (similarity 0.80)
- Supernatural watcher fear evolved because gossip made exposure costly (similarity 0.80)
- Ideomotor accounts predict kind Gods matter while watcher accounts predict punishing ones (similarity 0.80)
- Belief in supernatural watchers depends on both intuitive cognition and cultural transmission (similarity 0.80)
- Cultural selection and genetic adaptation theories of supernatural punishment differ fundamentally (similarity 0.79)
- Thoughts of watchful gods make people behave prosocially even when anonymous (similarity 0.79)
- Gods grow more moral as anonymity spreads, not by genetic design (similarity 0.79)
- Vengeful Gods make more potent moral monitors than kind Gods (similarity 0.78)
- Supernatural agents’ minimal counterintuitiveness explains their cultural advantage (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Mohist philosophers blamed social chaos on lost belief in supernatural punishment
#exemplifies(0.82) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 829 - Belief in supernatural watchers evolved as an adaptive guard against selfishness
#expands(0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 441 - Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming
#expands(0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 174 - Language and gossip created evolutionary pressure for supernatural surveillance beliefs
#expands(0.72) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 442