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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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“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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Metadata
- 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 › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › 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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