Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Published March 6, 2019 17:01 ET (Brief from the Royal Society)
People who believe in punishing gods are more likely to cooperate with each other. Researchers administered behavioral experiments and interviewed a sample of 2,228 participants from 15 diverse populations. They found that higher ratings of gods as all-seeing and punishing reliably predicted increased resource-sharing among people who shared a religion. Some elements of religion may also favour cooperative behavior towards people of other religions.
Canadian co-author: Ara Norenzayan, University of British Columbia – ara@psych.ubc.ca
