Kin selection favors religious traditions: ancestor worship as a cultural descendant-leaving strategy

Abstract

Recent years have seen renewed interest in the role of religious systems as drivers of the evolution of cooperation in human societies. One suggestion is that a cultural tradition of ancestor worship might have evolved as a “descendant-leaving strategy” of ancestors by encouraging increased altruism particularly between distant kin. Specifically, Coe and others have suggested a mechanism of cultural transmission exploiting social learning biases, whereby ancestors have been able to establish parental manipulation of kin recognition and perceived relatedness as a traditional behavior, leading to increased altruism among co-descendants and thereby maximizing the ancestor’s long-term inclusive fitness. Here, we develop a demographically explicit model in order to quantify the resulting increase in altruism and concomitant “ancestor-descendant conflict”, and to determine the evolutionary feasibility of religiously motivated cultural norms that promote altruism among co-descendants. Our analysis reveals that such norms could indeed drive an overall increase in altruism with potential for ancestor-descendant conflict, particularly in low-dispersal settings. Moreover, we find that natural selection can favor traditions encouraging increased altruism towards co-descendants under a range of conditions, with the inclusive-fitness costs of enacting an inappropriately high level of altruism being offset by inclusive-fitness benefits derived from the cultural tradition facilitating kin recognition.

Chinese Ethnic Religious System in the Novel Kancing yang Terlepas by Handry TM

“…The ethnic Chinese concept that the dead's spirits will be immortal gives rise to ancestor worship activities (Stucky & Gardner, 2023). Ancestor worship is carried out by the Chinese in a simple manner in their homes, as well as in Indonesia.…”

“…The ability to influence things that make people happy and detrimental is more significant than when they were alive. Therefore, a cult of dead people arose (Shaw & Donnelly, 2021;Stucky & Gardner, 2023).…”