God’s punishment and public goods: A test of the supernatural punishment hypothesis in 186 world cultures
Abstract
Cooperation towards public goods relies on credible threats of punishment to deter cheats. However, punishing is costly, so it remains unclear who incurred the costs of enforcement in our evolutionary past. Theoretical work suggests that human cooperation may be promoted if people believe in supernatural punishment for moral transgressions. This theory is supported by new work in cognitive psychology and by anecdotal ethnographic evidence, but formal quantitative tests remain to be done. Using data from 186 societies around the globe, I test whether the likelihood of supernatural punishment-indexed by the importance of moralizing "high gods"-is associated with cooperation.
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Dominic Johnson's survey of 186 people groups showed an extremely high correlation between cooperation and belief in moralizing high gods.
“Finally, Dominic Johnson ' s survey of 186 people groups showed an extremely high correlation between cooperation and belief in moralizing high gods (2005: 410 -446).”
From The Evolutionary Psychology of Chinese Religion: Pre-Qin High Gods as Punishers and Rewarders (2011) · cites this paper as Johnson 2005: 410-446
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Tyvancher eeziand the socioecological constraints of supernatural agents' minds
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Evolutionary accounts of belief in supernatural punishment: a critical review
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Outsourcing punishment to God: beliefs in divine control reduce earthly punishment.
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The extended religious phenotype and the adaptive coupling of ritual and belief
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Anthropology of religion: Disasters and the representations of tradition and modernity
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Big Gods, small wonder: supernatural punishment strikes back
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Self-citationReligious attitudes and prosocial behavior: a systematic review of published research
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Religion as an Evolutionary Byproduct: A Critique of the Standard Model
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Buddha as a God: An Empirical Assessment
Purzycki, B. G., & Holland, E. C. (2019) · Method & Theory in the Study of Religion · doi:10.1163/15700682-12341453 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
The Role of Religion in Community-based Natural Resource Management
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The Coexistence Problem in Psychology, Anthropology, and Evolutionary Theory
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Cross-cultural dataset for the evolution of religion and morality project
Purzycki, B. G., Apicella, C. L., Atkinson, Q. D., Cohen, E. E. A., McNamara, R. A., Willard, A. K., Xygalatas, D., Ara Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2016) · Scientific Data · doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.99 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Self-Interest and the Design of Rules
Singh, M., Wrangham, R. W., & Glowacki, L. (2017) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-017-9298-7 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Conflict Changes How People View God
Caluori, N., Jackson, J. C., Gray, K. J., & Gelfand, M. J. (2020) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797619895286 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Does religion make people moral?
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What Does God Know? Supernatural Agents’ Access to Socially Strategic and Non‐Strategic Information
Purzycki, B. G., Finkel, D. N., Shaver, J. H., Wales, N., Cohen, A. B., & Sosis, R. H. (2012) · Cognitive Science · doi:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01242.x · Cited by 76 · see citing works
Supernatural and secular monitors promote human cooperation only if they remind of punishment
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Religious Context and Prosociality: An Experimental Study from Valparaíso, Chile
Ahmed, A. M., & Salas, O. (2013) · Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion · doi:10.1111/jssr.12045 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Spreading order: religion, cooperative niche construction, and risky coordination problems
Bulbulia, J. A. (2011) · Biology & Philosophy · doi:10.1007/s10539-011-9295-x · Cited by 73 · see citing works
A behavioral economic assessment of individualizing versus binding moral foundations
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The Effects of Spirituality and Religiosity on the Ethical Judgment in Organizations
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Religious people discount the future less
Carter, E. C., McCullough, M. E., Kim‐Spoon, J., Corrales, C. M., & Blake, A. B. (2011) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.09.006 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
Cultural macroevolution matters
Gray, R. D., & Watts, J. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1620746114 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
The Error of God: Error Management Theory, Religion, and the Evolution of Cooperation
Johnson, D. D. P. (2009) · Springer Series in Game Theory · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85436-4_10 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
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Religion and the Unmaking of Prejudice toward Muslims: Evidence from a Large National Sample
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Religiosity and religious attendance as factors in wellbeing and social engagement
Dunbar, R. (2020) · Religion Brain & Behavior · doi:10.1080/2153599x.2020.1712618 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Religious Motivations for Cooperation: An Experimental Investigation Using Explicit Primes
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Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Supernatural Beliefs and Practices
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Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake”
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U.S. Citizens’ Representations of God and Support for Sustainability Policies
Johnson, K. A., Liu, R. L., Minton, E. A., Bartholomew, D. E., Peterson, M., Cohen, A. B., & Kees, J. (2017) · Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · doi:10.1509/jppm.16.108 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
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Ancient oral tradition describes volcano–earthquake interaction at merapi volcano, indonesia
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Our better nature: Does resource stress predict beyond-household sharing?
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The Evolution of Gods’ Minds in the Tyva Republic
Purzycki, B. G. (2016) · Current Anthropology · doi:10.1086/685729 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Principles of cooperation across systems: from human sharing to multicellularity and cancer
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Material security, life history, and moralistic religions: A cross-cultural examination
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Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model
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The Potential of Religion for Promoting Sustainability: The Role of Stewardship
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Christian religious badges instill trust in Christian and non-Christian perceivers.
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Coding culture: challenges and recommendations for comparative cultural databases
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The moralization bias of gods’ minds: a cross-cultural test
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Religious Prosociality: Personal, Cognitive, and Social Factors
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Are Big Gods a big deal in the emergence of big groups?
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- Authors
- Johnson, D. D. P.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Johnson, Dominic D. P.
- Venue
- Human Nature
- Published
- 2005-12
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 410-446
- ISSN
- 1045-6767 (ISSN-L)
- 1936-4776
- OpenAlex
- W2004532904
- Cited by
- 323
- References
- 100
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 13.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Human Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- supernatural punishment, public goods, cooperation, religious beliefs, enforcement costs, cross-cultural comparison, evolution of cooperation
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