Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T09:01:02.965Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Credibility, credulity, and redistribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2016

Hugo A. Viciana
Affiliation:
Human Cognition and Evolution Group, Associated Unit to IFISC (CSIC-UIB), Campus Carretera Valldemossa, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain. hugo.viciana@gmail.comtoni.gomila@uib.cathttp://www.evocog.org
Claude Loverdo
Affiliation:
Laboratoire Jean Perrin. CNRS-Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 75252 Paris, Cedex 05, France. claude.loverdo@gmail.com
Antoni Gomila
Affiliation:
Human Cognition and Evolution Group, Associated Unit to IFISC (CSIC-UIB), Campus Carretera Valldemossa, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain. hugo.viciana@gmail.comtoni.gomila@uib.cathttp://www.evocog.org

Abstract

After raising some doubts for cultural group selection as an explanation of prosocial religiosity, we propose an alternative that views it as a “greenbeard effect.” We combine the dynamic constraints on the evolution of greenbeard effects with Iannaccone's (1994) account of strict sects. Our model shows that certain social conditions may foster credulity and prosociality.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

André, J.-B. & Morin, O. (2011) Questioning the cultural evolution of altruism. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 24(12):2531–42.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. (2010) Comment nous sommes devenus moraux. Une histoire naturelle du bien et du mal [How we became moral: A natural history of good and evil]. Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Diamond, J. M. (1997b) Guns, germs and steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. Norton.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2005) Altruists with green beards. Analyse & Kritik 27(1):7384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, A. & West, S. A. (2010) Greenbeards. Evolution 64(1):2538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J. (2009) The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior 30:244–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herley, C. (2012) Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria? WEIS.Google Scholar
Iannaccone, L. R. (1994) Why strict churches are strong. American Journal of Sociology 99: 1180–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C. (2005) Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McElreath, R., Richerson, P. & Boyd, R. (2003) Shared norms and the evolution of ethnic markers. Current Anthropology 44(1):122–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nesse, R. M. (2009) Social selection and the origins of culture. In: Evolution, culture, and the human mind, ed. Schaller, M., Heine, S. J., Norenzayan, A., Yamagishi, T. & Kameda, T., pp. 137–50. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Noë, R. & Hammerstein, P. (1994) Biological markets: Supply and demand determine the effect of partner choice in cooperation, mutualism and mating. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 35(1):111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, P. & Inglehart, R. (2011) Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide, second edition. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Soltis, J., Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1995) Can group-functional behaviors evolve by cultural group selection? An empirical test. Current Anthropology 36(3):473–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viciana, H. (2014) Le concept éthologique de culture. Aux origines de l'influence sociale [The ethological concept of culture. Origins of social influence]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Université deParis 1- Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris.Google Scholar