Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia
Open accessAbstract
Supernatural belief presents an explanatory challenge to evolutionary theorists—it is both costly and prevalent. One influential functional explanation claims that the imagined threat of supernatural punishment can suppress selfishness and enhance cooperation. Specifically, morally concerned supreme deities or ‘moralizing high gods' have been argued to reduce free-riding in large social groups, enabling believers to build the kind of complex societies that define modern humanity. Previous cross-cultural studies claiming to support the MHG hypothesis rely on correlational analyses only and do not correct for the statistical non-independence of sampled cultures. Here we use a Bayesian phylogenetic approach with a sample of 96 Austronesian cultures to test the MHG hypothesis as well as an alternative supernatural punishment hypothesis that allows punishment by a broad range of moralizing agents. We find evidence that broad supernatural punishment drives political complexity, whereas MHGs follow political complexity. We suggest that the concept of MHGs diffused as part of a suite of traits arising from cultural exchange between complex societies. Our results show the power of phylogenetic methods to address long-standing debates about the origins and functions of religion in human society.
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Watts et al. (2015) found that ancestral spirits in Austronesian cultures, and not only supreme creator gods, are able to punish and thus instill cooperation.
“Watts et al. (2015) looked at a broad range of supernatural agents, including ancestral spirits, in Austronesian (Oceanic) cultures. They found that such agents, and not only supreme creator gods, are able to punish, and thus instill cooperation.”
From The Challenge of Evolution to Religion (2019) · cites this paper as Watts et al., 2015
Cites
Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia: An Essay in Historical Anthropology
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Roes, F. (2003) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(02)00134-4 · Cited by 286 · cited 6× · see citing works
“In contrast to a range of functionalist theories of supernatural punishment [2–4,6], and claims from previous comparative non-phylogenetic studies [5,9,11], our results indicate that beliefs in neither MHGs nor BSP sustains political complexity.”
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Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human sociality
Purzycki, B. G., Apicella, C., Atkinson, Q. D., Cohen, E., McNamara, R. A., Willard, A. K., Xygalatas, D., Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2016) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature16980 · Cited by 494 · see citing works
Self-citationRitual human sacrifice promoted and sustained the evolution of stratified societies
Watts, J., Sheehan, O., Atkinson, Q. D., Bulbulia, J., & Gray, R. D. (2016) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature17159 · Cited by 188 · see citing works
Self-citationNorenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x15000655 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
The Cultural Evolution of Epistemic Practices
Hong, Z., & Henrich, J. (2021) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-021-09408-6 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
White, C. J. M., & Norenzayan, A. (2019) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2019.03.001 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
The Challenge of Evolution to Religion
De Smedt, J., & De Cruz, H. (2019) · Cambridge University Press · doi:10.1017/9781108685436 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Gendron, M., Mesquita, B., & Barrett, L. F. (2020) · Culture, Mind, and Brain · doi:10.1017/9781108695374.010 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Cultural Evolution of Religion, Spirituality and Ritual: Impacts On Human Cooperation
McNamara, R. A. (2024) · KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie · doi:10.1007/s11577-024-00937-3 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…directly beneficial for cooperation by providing a ‘cognitive middle-man’ to deter would-be cheaters that would otherwise break long-term cooperation when no human observer was around to punish their violations (Sterelny 2017; Norenzayan et al. 2016a; Schloss and Murray 2011a; Watts et al. 2015).”
Weathering the Storm: Supernatural Belief and Cooperation in an Insecure World
McNamara, R. A. (2020) · Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture · doi:10.1558/jsrnc.38538 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Watts, J., Greenhill, S. J., Atkinson, Q. D., Currie, T. E., Bulbulia, J., & Gray, R. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Watts, Joseph
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2015-04-07
- Volume
- 282
- Issue
- 1804
- Pages
- 20142556
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC4375858
- OpenAlex
- W2122200712
- Cited by
- 352
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 86 · 2020: 55 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 87.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (acceptedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- supernatural punishment, political complexity, Austronesian culture, origins of religion, cooperation, free-riding, cultural evolution, cultural diffusion
- MeSH terms
- Asia, Southeastern, Bayes Theorem, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Cultural Evolution, Humans, Morals, Phylogeny, Punishment, Religion, Australasia
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