Richard Sosis
Biographic Data
| ID | 3618962 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Sosis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Sosis |
| SIGNATURE | SOSIS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Connecticut |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 208 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Maternal religiosity and social support to mothers
Data and statistical script: The statistical script associated with this study is made public https://osf.io/6mpbe/. However, since the data we use in this study are part of larger project and will be made public in a future, we cannot currently share the raw dataset. Therefore, we provide access to the processed dataset prepared for analyses. Reader may go through the full script or skip the data curation part directly to load prepared dataset a…
Uncoordinated, contradictory, yet cumulatively effective
Religious parents receive more alloparental aid in rural Bangladesh
Researchers have long speculated about the evolutionary benefits of religiosity. One explanation for the evolution of religious ritual is that rituals signal commitment to co-religionists. As a major domain of prosocial behaviour, alloparental care – or care directed at children by non-parents – is a plausible benefit of religious signalling. The religious alloparenting hypothesis posits that parents who signal religious commitment receive greate…
Religious Systems Evolving II
This response addresses issues raised by commentators of our book, Religion Evolving: Cultural, Cognitive, and Ecological Dynamics. Specifically, we address issues regarding definition, models of cognition, and how to study and understand functions of evolving cultural systems
Esporte Como Sistema De Criação De Significado
Tradução de Sport as a meaning-making system: insights from the study of religion, publicado originalmente na revista Religion, v. 13, n. 10, 2022, com as devidas permissões dos autores, dos editores acadêmicos (Hans Zollner e Carles Salazar) da revista Religion e da editora MDPI
Nuclearization of maternal support networks in the UK and the US during the Covid-19 pandemic
The social isolation resulting from governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic likely limited support available to mothers. Evidence suggests tasks like childcare and domestic work fell disproportionately on mothers during the pandemic, with consequences for their wellbeing. We explore how the pandemic affected emotional and practical support available to mothers between March and August 2020 and whether changes in support are associated wit…
Soul Mates? Conflicts and Complementarities in the Evolutionary and Cognitive Sciences of Religion
This chapter aims to (a) provide a brief overview of the three primary approaches to the evolutionary study of religion (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, and dual-inheritance theory), (b) examine how the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion differ, and (c) explore areas of potential integration between these two scientific fields of inquiry. The chapter concludes that although the evolutionary and cognitive sciences o…
Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Violence
Religion and violence share a complex and enduring history. Viewing violence and religion from an evolutionary perspective situates both within a broader framework of aggressive, affiliative, and signaling behaviors across species. In this work the authors review genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors that influence violence, distinguishing two types of aggression that differ in underlying physiology and intent. The use of communicative s…
The impact of market integration on arranged marriages in Matlab, Bangladesh
Success in marriage markets has lasting impacts on women's wellbeing. By arranging marriages, parents exert financial and social powers to influence spouse characteristics and ensure optimal marriages. While arranging marriages is a major focus of parental investment, marriage decisions are also a source of conflict between parents and daughters in which parents often have more power. The process of market integration may alter parental investmen…
Sport as a Meaning-Making System
Meaning-making has been one of the primary domains of religion throughout history, and some have claimed that this is religion's central function. Yet, the modern era has seen a proliferation of other social institutions that generate meaning for people. Here we reflect on what religious meaning-making can tell us about meaning-making in secular institutions, with a particular focus on sport. Sport as a meaning-making institution is puzzling sinc…
Mother's Partnership Status and Allomothering Networks in the United Kingdom and United States
In high-income, low-fertility (HILF) settings, the mother's partner is a key provider of childcare. However, it is not clear how mothers without partners draw on other sources of support to raise children. This paper reports the findings from a survey of 1532 women in the United Kingdom and the United States, in which women described who provided childcare for a focal child and how frequently they did so. We use multivariate Bayesian regression m…
Systemics of Violent Religious Nationalism
What universal features of the mind interact with specific ecologies to produce expressions of violent religious nationalism? To shed light on this question, we focus on a case study of the Yugoslav Wars, asking: How did different religious groups in the Balkans move from cooperative relationships to violent ones? We argue that the most prevalent theories invoked to answer this question fail to adequately explain the change, namely, both the rise…
Alloparenting and religious fertility
Optimising human community sizes
We examine community longevity as a function of group size in three historical, small scale agricultural samples. Community sizes of 50, 150 and 500 are disproportionately more common than other sizes; they also have greater longevity. These values mirror the natural layerings in hunter-gatherer societies and contemporary personal networks. In addition, a religious ideology seems to play an important role in allowing larger communities to maintai…
Costly Signaling in Human Culture
Evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists have applied costly signaling theory (CST) to explain many of the apparently wasteful and ostensibly maladaptive behaviors evident across human cultures. CST suggests that costly behaviors can enable reliable communication between individuals with partially conflicting interests. To date, researchers have fruitfully applied CST to a wide range of human behaviors
“God Is Watching You” … and might be influencing your brain, too
This issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior (RBB) features a book symposium on Dominic Johnson’s God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. Eight commentators engage Johnson’s book and t
Costs do not Explain Trust among Secular Groups
Many human groups achieve high levels of trust and cooperation, but these achievements are vulnerable to exploitation. Several theorists have suggested that when groups impose costs on their members, these costs can function to limit freeriding, and hence promote trust and cooperation. While a substantial body of experimental research has demonstrated a positive relationship between costs and cooperation in religious groups, to date, this relatio…
Christian religious badges instill trust in Christian and non-Christian perceivers
Religion
Religions are complex systems that can adapt to diverse environments because of the dynamic relationship of their internal parts. The most fundamental of these parts includes supernatural beliefs, rituals, and myths. The social scientific study of religion focuses on these parts and builds on previous generations of research to provide distal explanations for religion as a dynamic phenomenon. In recent years, interest in the social science of rel…
Portrait
As the first invitee to this portrait section trained as a scholar of religion and situated in a department of religious studies, I was interested to see how previous scholars trained in anthropology and sociology positioned themselves in relation to ‘religion’ as an object of study. It seems we all do so gingerly. Although my graduate work was in the history of Christianity with a focus on American religious history, since the early 1990s I have…
Moral Intuitions and the Religious System
The study of moral intuition has come to incorporate several disciplines, including philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology, and moral psychology. Despite its interdisciplinarity, the study of moral intuitions nevertheless remains centered on investigations of emotional cognition and evolved cognitive modules. Yet, there are difficulties in focusing so strongly on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie moral intuitions and so mi…
Religions as cultural solutions to social living.
Ritual, Religion, and Violence
This chapter, which discusses the association between religion and violence, also addresses why suicide terrorists are willing to offer their lives for their life-affirming religions. Religious violence and “sacred pain” have long been significant components in the mythology and ritual of Western religious traditions. Religious rituals differ widely across cultures. Music intensifies the ritual experience itself, transforming the ordinary into th…
The Peacock’s Tale
Author(s): Blumstein, Daniel T.; Atran, Scott; Field, Scott; Hochberg, Michael; Johnson, Dominic; Sagarin, Raphael; Sosis, Richard; Thayer, Bradley; Fearon, James; Morin, Olivier; Sear, Rebecca; Geller, Armando | Abstract: This is a Focus Article with Commentaries that was published on the Social Evolution Forum
Psalms and Coping with Uncertainty
Many scholars have argued that rituals serve to help individuals cope with challenges that arise under uncertain conditions. Ongoing research has been examining this claim with data collected on how Israeli women use psalm recitation to cope with the stress of war and terror. Here we compare the efficacy of psalm recitation among religious women who remained in northern Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War and women who relocated to central Israel,…
Religious Ritual and Cooperation
Signalling theory and the evolution of religious cooperation
How does religion motivate cooperation? How do the factors (genetic and cultural) that cause these motivations variously evolve, and why are they conserved? Cooperative-signalling theories of religion answer these questions by generalising from well-supported principles and research in the life sciences. Cooperative-signalling theories are interesting because they explain existing puzzles in the data about religions, and lead to testable hypothes…
Psalms and Coping with Uncertainty
Many scholars have argued that rituals serve to help individuals cope with challenges that arise under uncertain conditions. Ongoing research has been examining this claim with data collected on how Israeli women use psalm recitation to cope with the stress of war and terror. Here we compare the efficacy of psalm recitation among religious women who remained in northern Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War and women who relocated to central Israel,…
Psalms for Safety
Examination of the extent to which women in the northern Israeli town of Tzfat recited psalms to cope with the stress of the Second Palestinian Intifada reveals that knowing someone who was killed in the Intifada, experiencing an income loss, and believing that Tzfat would be attacked by terrorists were strong predictors of psalm recitation among self-identified secular but not religious interviewees. Among secular interviewees who believed that …
Patch Choice Decisions among Ifaluk Fishers
Studies of patch choice decisions among human foragers have failed to explain why foragers do not exclusively exploit the patch with the highest mean profitability. One possible explanation is that profitability rankings are likely to vary daily; however, this instability is not captured when profitabilities are calculated as a sampled average over a longer time span. Here I present data on the patch choice decisions of Ifaluk fishers to evaluate…
The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion
The primary debate among scholars who study the evolution of religion concerns whether religion is an adaptation or a byproduct. The dominant position in the field is that religious beliefs and behaviors are byproducts of cognitive processes and behaviors that evolved for other purposes. A smaller group of scholars maintain that religion is an adaptation for extending human cooperation and coordination. Here I survey five critiques of the adapati…
The behavioral ecology of religion
Applying evolutionary analyses to the study of religion is fraught with complications and potential misunderstandings. Most notably, the evolutionary sciences do not offer one clear procedure to study religion or any human activity. Here we describe the behavioral ecological approach to religion. We explain the theoretical motivations behind behavioral ecological research and discuss the methodologies employed to conduct this research. We argue t…
The impact of market integration on arranged marriages in Matlab, Bangladesh
Success in marriage markets has lasting impacts on women's wellbeing. By arranging marriages, parents exert financial and social powers to influence spouse characteristics and ensure optimal marriages. While arranging marriages is a major focus of parental investment, marriage decisions are also a source of conflict between parents and daughters in which parents often have more power. The process of market integration may alter parental investmen…
Mother's Partnership Status and Allomothering Networks in the United Kingdom and United States
In high-income, low-fertility (HILF) settings, the mother's partner is a key provider of childcare. However, it is not clear how mothers without partners draw on other sources of support to raise children. This paper reports the findings from a survey of 1532 women in the United Kingdom and the United States, in which women described who provided childcare for a focal child and how frequently they did so. We use multivariate Bayesian regression m…
Systemics of Violent Religious Nationalism
What universal features of the mind interact with specific ecologies to produce expressions of violent religious nationalism? To shed light on this question, we focus on a case study of the Yugoslav Wars, asking: How did different religious groups in the Balkans move from cooperative relationships to violent ones? We argue that the most prevalent theories invoked to answer this question fail to adequately explain the change, namely, both the rise…
Costs do not Explain Trust among Secular Groups
Many human groups achieve high levels of trust and cooperation, but these achievements are vulnerable to exploitation. Several theorists have suggested that when groups impose costs on their members, these costs can function to limit freeriding, and hence promote trust and cooperation. While a substantial body of experimental research has demonstrated a positive relationship between costs and cooperation in religious groups, to date, this relatio…
On Ritual and Cooperation
Sport as a Meaning-Making System
Meaning-making has been one of the primary domains of religion throughout history, and some have claimed that this is religion's central function. Yet, the modern era has seen a proliferation of other social institutions that generate meaning for people. Here we reflect on what religious meaning-making can tell us about meaning-making in secular institutions, with a particular focus on sport. Sport as a meaning-making institution is puzzling sinc…
The Peacock’s Tale
Author(s): Blumstein, Daniel T.; Atran, Scott; Field, Scott; Hochberg, Michael; Johnson, Dominic; Sagarin, Raphael; Sosis, Richard; Thayer, Bradley; Fearon, James; Morin, Olivier; Sear, Rebecca; Geller, Armando | Abstract: This is a Focus Article with Commentaries that was published on the Social Evolution Forum
Costly signaling and torch fishing on Ifaluk atoll
Ever Since Adam and Eve
Patch Choice Decisions among Ifaluk Fishers
Studies of patch choice decisions among human foragers have failed to explain why foragers do not exclusively exploit the patch with the highest mean profitability. One possible explanation is that profitability rankings are likely to vary daily; however, this instability is not captured when profitabilities are calculated as a sampled average over a longer time span. Here I present data on the patch choice decisions of Ifaluk fishers to evaluate…
Religious Ritual and Cooperation
On Ritual and Cooperation
Psalms for Safety
Examination of the extent to which women in the northern Israeli town of Tzfat recited psalms to cope with the stress of the Second Palestinian Intifada reveals that knowing someone who was killed in the Intifada, experiencing an income loss, and believing that Tzfat would be attacked by terrorists were strong predictors of psalm recitation among self-identified secular but not religious interviewees. Among secular interviewees who believed that …
The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion
The primary debate among scholars who study the evolution of religion concerns whether religion is an adaptation or a byproduct. The dominant position in the field is that religious beliefs and behaviors are byproducts of cognitive processes and behaviors that evolved for other purposes. A smaller group of scholars maintain that religion is an adaptation for extending human cooperation and coordination. Here I survey five critiques of the adapati…
Psalms and Coping with Uncertainty
Many scholars have argued that rituals serve to help individuals cope with challenges that arise under uncertain conditions. Ongoing research has been examining this claim with data collected on how Israeli women use psalm recitation to cope with the stress of war and terror. Here we compare the efficacy of psalm recitation among religious women who remained in northern Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War and women who relocated to central Israel,…
Signalling theory and the evolution of religious cooperation
How does religion motivate cooperation? How do the factors (genetic and cultural) that cause these motivations variously evolve, and why are they conserved? Cooperative-signalling theories of religion answer these questions by generalising from well-supported principles and research in the life sciences. Cooperative-signalling theories are interesting because they explain existing puzzles in the data about religions, and lead to testable hypothes…
The behavioral ecology of religion
Applying evolutionary analyses to the study of religion is fraught with complications and potential misunderstandings. Most notably, the evolutionary sciences do not offer one clear procedure to study religion or any human activity. Here we describe the behavioral ecological approach to religion. We explain the theoretical motivations behind behavioral ecological research and discuss the methodologies employed to conduct this research. We argue t…
The Peacock’s Tale
Author(s): Blumstein, Daniel T.; Atran, Scott; Field, Scott; Hochberg, Michael; Johnson, Dominic; Sagarin, Raphael; Sosis, Richard; Thayer, Bradley; Fearon, James; Morin, Olivier; Sear, Rebecca; Geller, Armando | Abstract: This is a Focus Article with Commentaries that was published on the Social Evolution Forum
Ritual, Religion, and Violence
This chapter, which discusses the association between religion and violence, also addresses why suicide terrorists are willing to offer their lives for their life-affirming religions. Religious violence and “sacred pain” have long been significant components in the mythology and ritual of Western religious traditions. Religious rituals differ widely across cultures. Music intensifies the ritual experience itself, transforming the ordinary into th…
Moral Intuitions and the Religious System
The study of moral intuition has come to incorporate several disciplines, including philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology, and moral psychology. Despite its interdisciplinarity, the study of moral intuitions nevertheless remains centered on investigations of emotional cognition and evolved cognitive modules. Yet, there are difficulties in focusing so strongly on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie moral intuitions and so mi…
Religions as cultural solutions to social living.
Religion
Religions are complex systems that can adapt to diverse environments because of the dynamic relationship of their internal parts. The most fundamental of these parts includes supernatural beliefs, rituals, and myths. The social scientific study of religion focuses on these parts and builds on previous generations of research to provide distal explanations for religion as a dynamic phenomenon. In recent years, interest in the social science of rel…
Portrait
As the first invitee to this portrait section trained as a scholar of religion and situated in a department of religious studies, I was interested to see how previous scholars trained in anthropology and sociology positioned themselves in relation to ‘religion’ as an object of study. It seems we all do so gingerly. Although my graduate work was in the history of Christianity with a focus on American religious history, since the early 1990s I have…
Christian religious badges instill trust in Christian and non-Christian perceivers
Optimising human community sizes
We examine community longevity as a function of group size in three historical, small scale agricultural samples. Community sizes of 50, 150 and 500 are disproportionately more common than other sizes; they also have greater longevity. These values mirror the natural layerings in hunter-gatherer societies and contemporary personal networks. In addition, a religious ideology seems to play an important role in allowing larger communities to maintai…
Costly Signaling in Human Culture
Evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists have applied costly signaling theory (CST) to explain many of the apparently wasteful and ostensibly maladaptive behaviors evident across human cultures. CST suggests that costly behaviors can enable reliable communication between individuals with partially conflicting interests. To date, researchers have fruitfully applied CST to a wide range of human behaviors
“God Is Watching You” … and might be influencing your brain, too
This issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior (RBB) features a book symposium on Dominic Johnson’s God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. Eight commentators engage Johnson’s book and t
Costs do not Explain Trust among Secular Groups
Many human groups achieve high levels of trust and cooperation, but these achievements are vulnerable to exploitation. Several theorists have suggested that when groups impose costs on their members, these costs can function to limit freeriding, and hence promote trust and cooperation. While a substantial body of experimental research has demonstrated a positive relationship between costs and cooperation in religious groups, to date, this relatio…
Alloparenting and religious fertility
Systemics of Violent Religious Nationalism
What universal features of the mind interact with specific ecologies to produce expressions of violent religious nationalism? To shed light on this question, we focus on a case study of the Yugoslav Wars, asking: How did different religious groups in the Balkans move from cooperative relationships to violent ones? We argue that the most prevalent theories invoked to answer this question fail to adequately explain the change, namely, both the rise…
Mother's Partnership Status and Allomothering Networks in the United Kingdom and United States
In high-income, low-fertility (HILF) settings, the mother's partner is a key provider of childcare. However, it is not clear how mothers without partners draw on other sources of support to raise children. This paper reports the findings from a survey of 1532 women in the United Kingdom and the United States, in which women described who provided childcare for a focal child and how frequently they did so. We use multivariate Bayesian regression m…
Soul Mates? Conflicts and Complementarities in the Evolutionary and Cognitive Sciences of Religion
This chapter aims to (a) provide a brief overview of the three primary approaches to the evolutionary study of religion (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, and dual-inheritance theory), (b) examine how the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion differ, and (c) explore areas of potential integration between these two scientific fields of inquiry. The chapter concludes that although the evolutionary and cognitive sciences o…
Psychology (22 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (14 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Anthropology (8 works) · Epistemology (8 works)