Jesus vs. the ancestors

How specific religious beliefs shape prosociality on Yasawa Island, Fiji

Bibliographic Data

ID18095986
AuthorsRita Anne Mcnamara (0000-0002-8530-768X, University of British Columbia, corresponding author), J Henrich (0000-0002-5012-0065, Harvard University)
Year2018
Volume8
Issue2
Pages185-204
Publication date2018-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion Brain & Behavior (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2153-5981 • E-ISSN: 2153-599X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2153599x.2016.1267030
OpenAlexW2597674786
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited40

We investigate how religious beliefs in an omnipotent, omniscient God vs. locally concerned, more limited gods impact prosocial behavior at varying degrees of social distance. We recruit participants from traditional villages on Yasawa Island, Fiji. Yasawan religion includes belief in both universalistic Christian teachings and local deified ancestor spirits (Kalou-vu). Yasawans’ contrasting reliance on local, kin-based social networks and anonymous economic market exchange provides an interesting test case for how religious beliefs interact with wider social structures. We use an experimental priming procedure to test whether reminders of Christian vs. traditional imagery, as compared to neutral, influence local or self-favoritism in the random allocation game (RAG). We find that traditional imagery caused increased local – but not self – favoritism. Priming effects depended upon perceived resource uncertainty: participants primed with Christian imagery were most likely to allocate to distant co-religionists when they were least worried about resources. However, more uncertainty predicted higher local RAG allocations, further suggesting the importance of local social networks for managing such uncertainty. We further find additional support for previous findings that prosocial effects of punitive supernatural agent beliefs depend upon uncertainty. These findings further emphasize the interplay between contents of cultural forms like religious belief and socioecological context

Dictator game · Geography · Prosocial behavior · Sociology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Psychology · Ecology

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