Costly Signaling as an Integral Part of the Systemic Approach to Religion: Critical Assessment from within the Field
In this commentary on Purzycki and Sosis' book Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics (2022), I subject their central assumption, namely that religious costs function as honest signals of commitment to systematic scrutiny. Many studies show that people who partake in (c...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
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| In: |
Journal for the cognitive science of religion
Jahr: 2022, Band: 10, Heft: 1/2, Seiten: 90-99 |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
Belief
B religious systems B Religion B Ritual B Complex Adaptive Systems B Evolution B costly signaling |
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Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Zusammenfassung: | In this commentary on Purzycki and Sosis' book Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics (2022), I subject their central assumption, namely that religious costs function as honest signals of commitment to systematic scrutiny. Many studies show that people who partake in (costlier) rituals cooperate (to a larger extent), but these studies are often non-experimental and say only a little about the causal relationship between signals and signaled quality, i.e., willingness to cooperate. Reviewing the existing literature on religious costly signaling, I argue that the core costly signaling model originally developed in evolutionary biology (and economics) is only partially supported when applied to religious signaling. At the same time, I show that little is known about the interactions between costly signals and supernatural beliefs. I discuss the results of the recent experimental work that tested basic assumptions of human costly signaling within the religious context. |
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| ISSN: | 2049-7563 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Journal for the cognitive science of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/jcsr.23765 |
