Supernatural watcher fears emerged to police reputation in a gossiping species

Evidence

Johnson and Bering point out that the fear of supernatural watchers emerged in response to the ability that humans developed to communicate information about reputations. In an intensely social, gossiping species such as ours, individual survival has heavily depended on cooperative group-living. With the advent of capacities for theory of mind, coupled with language, which allows for communication to absent parties, people were able to detect and transmit social transgressions to other group members. Committing selfish actions would have therefore risked detection by the social group, which could have led to punishment, resulting in loss of Darwinian fitness. The wholesale suppression of selfish behavior would therefore become ultimately adaptive at the individual level. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 442

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to gossip and reputation as the transparency mechanism the reader needs to contrast with Japanese authorities’ public trampling ritual.