Costly Commitments “Under His Eye”

Reconceptualizing the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion

Bibliographic Data

ID8201595
AuthorsMaciej Potz (0000-0003-4546-5699, University of Lodz, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume90
Issue3
Pages599-617
Publication date2022-12-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfad001
OpenAlexW4321435720
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited44

Costly signaling theory of religion has been proposed to explain the evolutionary adaptiveness of religion in general and, specifically, its prosocial effects, including the relative longevity of religious communes vis-à-vis their secular counterparts. This article focuses on two crucial aspects of this relationship: the features and functions of signals and the mechanism through which signaling translates into enhanced prosociality. It identifies some of the key factors of the costliness of behavior and distinguishes between religious and secular signals, arguing that only the latter serve to broadcast commitment. The role of religious signals, instead, might be to stimulate the supernatural watching (“Under His Eye”) mechanism: enhancing supernatural sanctions beliefs and providing a setting in which implicit prosocial responses are triggered. The relative absence of this mechanism in secular communities may explain their shorter life spans. A link is thus established between the costly signaling and supernatural punishment theories of religious behavior

Economics · Epistemology · Mechanism (biology) · Microeconomics · Political science · Prosocial behavior · Punishment (psychology) · Sanctions · Signalling · Sociology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology

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