Costs do not Explain Trust among Secular Groups

Abstract

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 relationship has not held for secular groups. Here we extend this line of research by comparing trust and cooperation among 11 secular groups, including four U.S. Greek fraternities that impose high costs on their members. We find that although fraternities impose greater costs on their members than social clubs, fraternities and social clubs do not significantly differ in their levels of intra-group trust. Moreover, variation in costs does not explain variation in trust among fraternities. We suggest that the lack of an evident relationship between costs and trust in our results is because secular groups, unlike religious groups, lack repeated rituals that are coupled with supernatural ideologies. We conclude by suggesting possible avenues for future research.

The evolutionary paths to collective rituals: An interdisciplinary perspective on the origins and functions of the basic social act

“…The results showed that while the number of costly requirements positively predicted the longevity of religious communes, the same requirements did not predict the survival of secular communes. A similar result was obtained in an experimental study where we tested the effects of costly requirements posed by various student groups on a US university campus (Shaver, DiVietro, et al, 2018). Specifically, we compared the frequency of costly requirements between fraternities, university clubs, and classes, and tested their effects on a trust-based cooperation.…”

“…The studies by Sosis and Bressler (2003) and by Shaver, DiVietro, et al (2018) indicate that while collective rituals (especially in their costly form) contribute to the stabilization of risky collective action, the interaction between collective rituals and belief is even more effective. As I proposed above, collective rituals evolved from rudimentary dyadic signals to reliable signals of commitment to group-specific norms.…”

Church attendance and alloparenting: an analysis of fertility, social support and child development among English mothers

“…At the same time, sociality leaves individuals vulnerable to exploitation by conspecifics [10]. Under such conditions, collective resources are more likely to emerge and stabilize when individuals can reliably communicate their commitment to group goals that motivate collective action and resource production [11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Replicating and extending the effects of auditory religious cues on dishonest behavior

“…Importantly, collective rituals are also a public venue for communicating commitment to supernatural agents and the norms they impose on believers [ 80 – 82 ]. However, the commitment is not signaled only to other believers but also to oneself as a form of auto-signaling reassuring participants about their beliefs in supernatural agents [ 58 , 83 , 84 ]. Hearing religious music may be a subconscious reminder of participation in rituals, strengthening the auto-communicated commitment signals.…”