Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran — Religion, group threat and sacred values

16 published claims from this book.

• External threat drives groups to ritualize preferences into sacred values
• Longitudinal Palestinian-adolescent data measure ritual frequency and threat perception across three waves.
• Merely reminding Muslims of their religiosity increases how many values they call sacred
• Merely reminding people of religious ritual raises how many sacred values they claim.
• Participation in religious ritual and perceived group threat jointly make people sacralize preferences.
• Participation in religious ritual creates sacred values, especially under group threat.
• Participation in religious ritual, not broader psychological traits, predicts sacred values.
• Perceived out-group threat amplifies ritual-driven sacralization of values.
• Positive incentive systems can be corrupted into subsidies for the very harm they target
• Religiosity predicts sacred values independent of demographics and politics.
• Religious ritual participation increases sacred values even on non-religious topics.
• Ritual participation plus perceived threat converts disputed preferences into sacred values.
• Sacralized values resist material incentives and cause offer-driven concessions to backfire
• Sacred values are measured by refusal to trade a preference for money
• Sacred values can form quickly through ritual and perceived group threat.
• Sacred values function as cognitive structures against ambiguity and uncertainty.