Evolution of Religion and Morality

This volume assesses the role of religion in cooperation and prosocial behaviour using ethnographic and experimental methods across eight different field sites. The first of two volumes, it presents results from the first phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) Project.

Using a unique combination of both experimental and ethnographic methods, the ERM project addresses pressing questions from the burgeoning cultural evolutionary sciences of religion, such as: what is the relationship between religious beliefs and cooperation? when people are committed to punitive, knowledgeable, and morally concerned gods, are they more inclined to behave prosocially towards others? how far does this prosociality extend? do important individual and contextual factors mediate this relationship?

In addition to an omnibus report, this book offers seven site-specific reports that contextualize experimental and ethnographic data collected around the world. Collecting data from communities as diverse as the Hadza of Tanzania, villagers from two communities on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, residents of Marajó, Brazil, Fijians from Yasawa and Lovu, Tyvans from southern Siberia, and Mauritians, this ground-breaking work sets a new standard in the scientific study of religion.

The Evolution of Religion and Morality: Volume I will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, human evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior.