Richard Sosis’ The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual

Summary by Brad R. Huber

Introduction

Many religious acts appear peculiar to the

outsider.

a.Moonies shave their heads (Not now, perhaps

in the past)

b.Clergy dress in outfits that distinguish them

from the rest of society. E.g.,

Bishops at Conference of Canterbury

Many peoples also engage in some form of surgical

alteration:

a.Australian aborigine adolescent boys have a

bone or stone inserted into the penis.

b.Daughters are circumcised

c.Ritual scarification of Nuer

How can we understand such behavior?

Behavioral ecologists assume that natural selection

has designed our decision-making mechanisms.

Given environment “X”, what behaviors would

increase the likelihood of an individual’s survival

and reproduction?

So, why would we engage in religious behavior that

seems so counterproductive?

Indeed, some religious practices, such as ritual

sacrifices, are a conspicuous display of wasted

resources., E.g., Kwakiutl Potlatch

Why has natural selection favored a psychology

that believes in the supernatural and engages

in the costly manifestations of those beliefs.

Ritual Sacrifice

1.A new generation of anthropologists have

begun to provide some explanation:

2.The “strangeness” of religious practices and

their inherent costs are actually the critical

features that contribute to the success of

religious as a universal cultural strategy.

3.We need to recognize the adaptive problem that

ritual behavior solves.

1.William Irons suggested that a universal

dilemma is the promotion of cooperation with a

community.

2.Irons argues that the primary adaptive benefit of

religion is its ability to facilitate cooperation

within a group---while hunting, sharing food,

defending against attacks, and waging war.

3.Although everyone is better off if everybody

cooperates, this ideal is often very difficult to

coordinate and achieve.

1.Cooperation requires social

mechanisms that prevent

individuals from free riding on the

efforts of others.

1.Ethologists have recognized that ritualistic

behaviors served as a form of communication.

a.The vibration of a rattlesnake’s tail is a powerful

threat display to other species.

b.Courtship rituals---such as bowing, head

wagging, wing waving and hopping---to signal

amorous intents before a prospective mate.

1.Irons’ insight is that religious activities signal

commitment to other members of the group.

2.Through its ability to signal commitment,

religious behavior can

a. overcome the problem of free riders and

b. promote cooperation within the group.

3. It is a robust way to secure trust.

1.Israeli biologist Amotz Zahavi observes that it is

often in the best interest of an animal to send a

dishonest signal---perhaps to fake its size, speed,

strength, health, or beauty.

2.The only signal that can be believed is one that is

too costly to fake, which her referred to as a

“handicap”.

1.Zahavi argues that natural selection has favored

the evolution of handicaps.

2.For example, when a springbok antelope spots

a predator it often stots---jumps up and down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIigVlcxwps

1.Why would an antelope waste precious energy

that could be used to escape the predator? And

why would the animal make itself more visible to

a predator?

2.The reason is that the springbok is displaying its

quality to the predator---its ability to escape.

3.The springbok is believed because the signal is too

costly to fake.

1. Religious behavior is also a costly signal.

a.Wearing layers of clothing and standing out in the

midday sun signals to other ultra-orthodox Jewish

men that they are members of this group and can be

trusted.

b.The quality these men are signaling is their level of

commitment to a specific religious group.

2. Adherence to a set of religious beliefs entails a host of

ritual obligations and expected behaviors.

3. The significant time, energy and financial costs

involved in some ritual practices serve as effective

deterrents for anyone who does not believe in the

teachings of a particular religion.

4. As a result of increased levels of trust and commitment

among group members, religious groups minimize costly

monitoring mechanisms that are otherwise necessary to

overcome free-rider problems

Benefits of Membership

1. One prediction of the “costly signaling theory of ritual” is that

groups that impose the greatest demands on their members will

elicit the highest levels of devotion and commitment.

2. This may explain a paradox: Churches that require the most of

their adherents are experiencing rapid rates of growth:

a. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

b. Seventh-day Adventists

c. Jehovah’s Witnesses

1.The costly signaling theory of ritual also predicts

that greater commitment will translate into

greater cooperation within groups.

2.19th-century communes faced an inherent

problem of promoting and sustaining

cooperation because individuals can free ride on

the efforts of others.

1. Sosis and Eric Bressler used commune longevity as a

measure of cooperation.

2. Compared to their secular counterparts, religious

communes did indeed demand more of their

members such as celibacy, the surrender of all

material possessions.

3. Communes that demanded more of their members

survived longer, overcoming the fundamental

challenges of cooperation.

1.The costly signaling theory of ritual was also

evaluated within modern communal societies.

2.The kibbutzim provided an ideal opportunity to

examine this hypothesis.

3.For 100 years, these communes lived by the

dictum, “From each according to his abilities, to

each according to his needs.”

4. The majority of the 270 kibbutzim are secular;

fewer than 20 are religiously oriented.

5.Because of debt, the kibbutzim are moving in

the direction of increased privatization and

reduced communality.

6.In the 1980s, we found out that the religious

kibbutzim were financially stable while the

secular ones were not.

7. The success of the religious kibbutzim is especially

remarkable given that many of their rituals inhibit

economic productivity.

a.For example, Jewish law does not permit Jews to milk

cows on the Sabbath.

b.And fruits are not allowed to be eaten for the first few

years of the tree’s life,

c. agricultural fields must lie fallow every seven years,

and

d.the corners of fields can never be harvested---they

must be left for society’s poor.

1. Although these constraints appear detrimental to

productivity, the costly signaling theory of ritual

suggests that they may actually be the key to the

economic success of the religious kibbutzim.

2. Sosis and Economist Bradley Ruffle developed a game

to determine whether there were differences in how

the members of secular and religious kibbutzim

cooperated with each other.

3. The game required individuals use self-

restraint---cooperation.

4. Religious kibbutzniks were more cooperative

with each other than secular kibbutzniks, and

male religious kibbutzniks were more

cooperative than female members.

1. Why? Male rituals are largely performed in public, and

those men who attended synagogue regularly were

the most cooperative.

2. Why are human rituals often cloaked in mystery and

the supernatural?

3. Cognitive anthropologists Scott Atran and Pascal Boyer

point out that the counterintuitive nature of

supernatural concepts are attention-arresting and

more easily remembered than mundane ideas

4. This facilitates their cultural transmission.

1.For example,

a. Totemic animals that can talk

b. Dead ancestors who demand sacrificial

offerings and visit the living

c. Incorporeal beings capable of being in all

places at all times

d. Transmutation of wine to blood

2.Believers verify supernatural concepts

“emotionally”.

1. Unfortunately there is also a dark side to religious

unity.

a. If the intra-group solidarity that religion promotes

is one of its significant adaptive benefits,

b. then religion has probably always played a role in

intergroup conflicts.

2. One of the benefits for individuals of intra-group

solidarity is the ability of unified groups to defend and

compete against other groups.

5. Kibbutz: Socialism on a Human Scale (07:03; From the

Video Unstable Utopias: The Global Spread of Socialism;

Films on Demand)