Community Spirit
In their God we trust: Religious cognition increases cooperation across religious divides
Michael Pasek et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Belief in moralizing Gods is widely thought to foster cooperation between coreligionists, but there is disagreement regarding whether this effect is limited to the religious ingroup or if it extends to members of religious outgroups. Here we report the results of a cross-cultural research program that demonstrates that people who think about God (a) are more trusted by both coreligionists and members of other religious groups and (b) typically behave in a more trustworthy manner toward both ingroups and outgroups. We ran three preregistered studies (N = 1,784) with Christians and Muslims in the United States, Jews and Muslims in Israel, and Christians and Hindus in Fiji. Our contexts varied in multiple ways, including the level of intergroup conflict. Using two-player trust games involving real money, we varied whether participants interacted with ingroup or outgroup members and whether reciprocators considered God when deciding how much to return to trustors. We find in each context that making moralizing God beliefs of one player salient enhances both intragroup and intergroup cooperation. Our findings add to a nascent literature documenting the potential for religious cognition to extend moral norms across intergroup divides. We discuss implications for theories of the emergence of moralizing Gods and implications for public debates about religious pluralism in diverse societies.
Evolved minds in a secular world: A large-scale survey of supernatural beliefs in Denmark
Ken Ramshøj Christensen & Mathias Clasen
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the prevalence, patterns, and demographic correlates of supernatural beliefs among 2,204 Danish adults, using data from a large-scale online survey conducted between November 2017 and February 2018. Despite Denmark's reputation as a highly secular and educated society, supernatural beliefs remain notably widespread, ranging from 0.3% (vampires) and 12.3% (angels) to 30.1% (psychic essence). Belief in supernatural phenomena is not randomly distributed but forms meaningful clusters, including spirituality, magical thinking, metaphysical beliefs, openness to alternative beliefs, and scientific beliefs -- the latter being negatively correlated with all supernatural categories. Findings reveal strong associations between belief patterns and demographic factors: Women exhibit significantly higher levels of supernatural belief than men, who show stronger belief in science; higher educational attainment is linked to slightly lower levels of supernatural belief; and religious affiliation strongly predicts belief tendencies, with nonreligious individuals reporting the lowest levels of supernatural belief and highest scientific belief. These patterns align with theories from evolutionary psychology, suggesting that supernatural beliefs stem from evolved cognitive biases such as patternicity and agenticity, which can be influenced -- but not entirely overridden -- by cultural and educational structures. Cross-cultural comparisons indicate that while supernatural beliefs are relatively common in Denmark, they are less prevalent than in countries like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. These results underscore the importance of cultural context in shaping belief systems and highlight the persistence of supernatural thinking even in secular societies.
Looking Backward: Long-Term Religious Service Attendance in 66 Countries
Robert Barro, Edgard Dewitte & Laurence Iannaccone
NBER Working Paper, July 2025
Abstract:
The attendance rate at religious services is an important variable for the sociology and economics of religion, but long-term and global data are scarce. Retrospective questions from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) allow the construction of rates of religious-service attendance back as far as the 1920s in 66 countries, half from the "Global South." A number of checks support the reliability of the retrospective information. One exercise demonstrates the consistency between retrospective and contemporaneous survey data when the two overlap. Another procedure shows that the retrospective values are similar when generated from individual ISSP surveys for 1991, 1998, 2008, and 2018; that is, there is no clear dependence of memory on the number of years of recall. The new data document a century-long "Great Religious Divergence" between North and South. We use the data to carry out event studies for effects on religious-service attendance of two major events. Vatican II, in 1962-1965, triggered a decline in worldwide Catholic attendance relative to that in other denominations. In contrast, the endings of Communism in the early 1990s did not systematically affect religious-service attendance. Finally, in a large sample, religious-service attendance responds positively to wars and depressions.
Christian Missionaries and International Trade, 1580-1936
Zhiwu Chen, Xinhao Li & Chicheng Ma
University of Hong Kong Working Paper, June 2025
Abstract:
Bridging the information gap between Europe and foreign lands is shown to be an important reason that Christian missionaries contributed to the historical rise of international trade. To prove their information-barrier mitigation role for early traders, we focus on the experience of historical China where European missionaries arrived from 1580 onward but foreign trade was largely banned then. We find that following China's opening for international trade in 1842, regions with longer past missionary presence imported more foreign goods and exported more local products, as these places had appeared more frequently in the missionaries' letters and publications back in Europe.
Usury enforcement as an alternative to capital taxation in pre-modern states
Joshua Hendrickson
Public Choice, June 2025, Pages 397-422
Abstract:
All governments have an obligation to protect their territory and the wealth within that territory from external predation. In fact, since war has historically resulted in the plunder and destruction of wealth, it seems straightforward to suggest that the cost of providing adequate defense of one's territory is a function of the accumulated wealth within the territory. Suppose that all wealth in society is capital. The accumulation of capital conveys a private benefit to its owner, but imposes an external cost on society. As with any externality, the optimal tax policy would be to tax capital. The revenue from capital taxation could then be used to finance defense. Such a taxation scheme, however, requires the state has an appropriate level of bureaucratic capacity. During the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, this sort of state infrastructure did not exist. Yet the rulers of those states faced the same constraint. In this paper, I argue that the enforcement of usury laws during this period replicate the outcome of the optimal capital tax. Lending at interest was prohibited. However, rulers often allowed certain groups to lend in society in exchange for a license fee. This granted monopoly status to lenders. At the same time, rulers imposed binding price ceilings on interest rates. The combination of these three characteristics of enforcement replicate the long-run restriction on capital accumulation of the optimal capital tax and generate revenue that is possibly equivalent to the tax as well. I then model ruler behavior given these incentives. Finally, I use historical evidence from England, Italy, and France to support my argument.
Affordances of costly religious practices for mating
Mazyar Bagherian et al.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans face the adaptive challenge of identifying potential long-term mates who exhibit desirable traits, such as generosity, physical protection, and loyalty. Inferences of such qualities could emerge through costly religious practices (CRPs). CRPs are behaviors associated with religious doctrines performed at significant personal cost, from which perceivers may infer desirable traits and determine whether a prospective mate affords social and reproductive value. In two within-subject, preregistered studies, we examined how performing CRPs connotes traits valued in potential mates in three domains: resource donation, physical strength, and commitment. Resource-based CRPs enhanced perceptions of generosity and long-term mating suitability, whereas physical strength CRPs connoted protection. Commitment-based CRPs consistently cued loyalty, appealing primarily in long-term mating contexts. Findings suggest that perceivers use religiosity as heuristics to identify prospective mates capable of satisfying relevant mating goals. We discuss findings by integrating insights from the evolutionary psychology of mating and religion.
Religious Exclusion and the Origins of Democracy
Şener Aktürk
Journal of Democracy, July 2025, Pages 63-77
Abstract:
The ongoing debate about democracy and diversity has been fruitful and thought-provoking but inconclusive because most scholars do not distinguish between ethnic, linguistic, racial, and religious diversity. The most challenging type of diversity for democracy past and present has been religious diversity. The first and the longest-lasting parliaments appeared in Western Europe with the eradication of all Jews and Muslims. The experience of England and France illustrate how religious homogeneity was related to the origins and the consolidation of the first parliaments. Conversely, religious diversity contributed to the collapse of the parliamentary regimes in Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
For the Power or the Glory? The Religiosity of America's Religious Nationalists
Ruiqian Li & Paul Froese
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, July 2025
Abstract:
State-centered Christian statism (CS) and society-centered religious traditionalism (RT) are two conservative religious nationalist ideologies that share Christian symbolisms but contain different attitudes about how the state and religion should interact; specifically, CS reflects the belief that Christianity needs to be the guiding ideology of the federal government, and RT mainly promotes the Christian ethos within civil society. We investigate whether these two ideologies predict different forms of religiosity. Analyzing the Baylor Religion Survey (Wave 6), we find that religious believers with stronger agreement with CS show a more self-oriented and petitionary religiosity, in which God is seen as especially interested in and responsive to them. And they tend to pray for divine assistance to meet their personal wants. In contrast, controlling for CS sentiment, believers with stronger RT agreement express a more praise-oriented and confessional religiosity, in which they feel personally accountable for their sins and routinely ask for forgiveness. RT believers also view God as more concerned with the well-being of the whole world and are less likely to ask for personal blessings. These findings further indicate that CS believers tend to express an individualized religiosity and that RT believers are more likely to spread faith and praise God.