Religion

Religion #

How did WEIRD evolve? #

Medieval Catholic Church #

In attempt to gain political power & wealth:

• prohibited cousin marriage
• created nuclear family system
• destroyed pre-Christian non-WEIRD society (highly kin-based, arranged marriage, polygynous)
• exposure to church ⇒ lower kinship intensity

Overall, universalizing religions created ethical codes, moral beliefs…

Purpose: to control wealth #

• traditionally, marriages controlled power and formed alliances (strong kin network)
• by restricting to male heir monogamy with no remarriage, very difficult to consolidate wealth.
  • had to buy dispensations, annulments, bequests from church
    • if no heir, give all money to church when dying to guarantee good afterlife

Kinship Psychology #

Marriage and Family Program (MFP) #

• Great Schism of 1054: Western Catholic Church split from Eastern Orthodox Church
• due to dispersion and strict laws, very hard to officially marry

→ result: marriage between strangers, individual ownership, nuclear family away from kin ⇒ individualism

• altered social networks and interpersonal interactions
• more generous behavior to strangers
• less conforming to other opinions
• more guilt (internal), less shame (group)

Individualism #

Weird societies (w/ more exposure to church) have increased:

• tradition
• obedience
• conformity
• impersonal prosociality [kindness to strangers]
• analytic thinking

embeddedness

• Can be predicted by prevalence of cousin marriage
  • more cousin marriage = less prosociality

WEIRD ⇒ individualistic, but prosocial

• nuclear families that live around strangers
• more generous in Ultimatum Game
• Problem: ineffective for addressing global problems

Religious Beliefs: Origins of Inequality #

• Myth → believed true, sacred
• Legend → believed true, not sacred
• Cosmology → how universe/people came into being
  • turns previously unsegmented, equal foraging societies w/ no material wealth into segmented, unequal inherited rank + wealth
  • Cosmology evolves to explain inequalities

In unsegmented, equal: #

• generosity good
• social gift giving w/ reciprocation
• names important
• respect elders
• incest, homicide unacceptable
• marriage is a transaction

In unsegmented, unequal: #

• Men are more virtuous
• defer to seniors
• immigrants defer to residents

In segmented, unequal: #

• junior lineages defer to senior
• born into family, initiation into
• any offense to one clan member → in (group response)

Case study: Chimu tribe #

Turning point: domestication of yams

• Creation of class-based society, delayed-return economy:
  • yogo: “nothing men” w/ few crops
  • 20% normal, polygynous men active in regional exchange, gardening, etc.
  • 5% yambo pondo “big men” – lead large feasts + activities, employ yogo as servants
• gender beliefs:
  • men are born virtuous
  • women are born unvirtuous and must gain virtuosity by giving birth

Punishment w/ Gods #

• with larger, anonymous societies, kin-based norm enforcement ineffective
• altruistic punishment: no revenge
  • “outsource punishment” to moralistic gods: omniscient, omnipresent, infallible, infinitely powerful

Human: