Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena

Jackson, Joshua Conrad; Wilbanks, Danica; Bastian, Brock; Watts, Joseph; Buckner, William; DiMaggio, Nicholas

doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01558-0

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Eastern and Western cultural traditions ultimately stem from the same deep historical roots (Bouckaert et al, 2022;Lee, Han, Byron, & Fan, 2008). Historical and ethnographic studies have found that early societies in both regions may have held widespread belief in animism 4 , in which many non-human agents or spiritual forces animated the natural world (Jackson, Dillion, et al, 2023;Peoples, Duda, & Marlowe, 2016). However, the religious and philosophical traditions in the East and West have diverged in key ways over the last 3000 years.…”

Section: Historical and Religious Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generally speaking, while cultural and religious values are not synonymous, they are heavily intertwined and affect one another. Animism and anthropomorphism, for example, have been treated as religious beliefs since the earliest days of cultural anthropology by scholars like Max Muller and Edward Burnett Tylor, and they continue to be studied in the psychology of religion(Jackson, Dillion, et al, 2023). But these beliefs have also become part of many metaphysical philosophical traditionsparticularly in East Asiaand they are now held by many people who may not consider themselves traditionally religious(Fuller, 2001).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Cultural Differences in People's Reactions and Applications of Robots, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence

Yam,

Tan,

Jackson

et al. 2023

Manag. Organ. Rev.

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Although research in cultural psychology has established that virtually all human behaviors and cognitions are in some ways shaped by culture, culture has been surprisingly absent from the emerging literature on the psychology of technology. In this perspective article, we first review recent findings on machine aversion versus appreciation. We then offer a cross-cultural perspective in understanding how people might react differently to machines. We propose three frameworks – historical, religious, and exposure – to explain how Asians might be more accepting of machines than their Western counterparts. We end the article by discussing three exciting human–machine applications found primarily in Asia and provide future research directions.

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Section: Historical and Religious Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Differences in People's Reactions and Applications of Robots, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence

Yam,

Tan,

Jackson

et al. 2023

Manag. Organ. Rev.

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“…Similarly, while cultural evolution figured relatively highly in all the subplots of Figure 1, we feel that the target article authors refer more specifically to cultural epidemiology (Sperber, 2002) than to dual inheritance theory (or gene-culture co-evolution; Boyd and Richerson 2005). The latter led to a major contribution to our understanding of how religious beliefs and behaviors might have evolved (Henrich, 2009;Jackson et al, 2021Jackson et al, , 2023Jackson & Gray, 2019;Lang et al, 2019;Norenzayan et al, 2016;Purzycki et al, 2016). If our reading is correct, the preference for cultural epidemiology and relative avoidance of gene-culture co-evolution begs the question: is this preference only a relic of the past where evolutionary psychology was the mainstream CSR evolutionary approach, an unintended result of closer social circles where CSR community was traditionally built around cultural epidemiology, or, is it, perhaps, a result of substantial differences in the conceptualization of cultural evolution where the target article authors signal their distaste for adaptationism in general?…”

Section: Examples Of Prominent Cesr Approaches Omitted In the Target ...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Shifting themes in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion

Cigán,

Krátký,

Kundt

et al. 2024

Preprint

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In their target article, White et al. celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), looking back on what has been done as well as into the possible futures that await this academic discipline. We are joyous to join this celebration as we consider ourselves ardent members of this discipline and wish to see the discipline flourish. Indeed, most of us academically grew up on the works of the CSR founding figures—many of whom are the authors of the present target article—and when founding our lab, we were much inspired by their call for more empirical evidence that would test the proposed theoretical models. Yet, as the inevitable law of inter-generational disagreement dictates, we see the recent developments of CESR (where the additional 'E' stands for evolution) and its near future fairly differently than White et al. In this spirit, our commentary offers several critical reflections on the target article, its scope as well as the proposed future directions for CESR.

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“…Warfare frequency is one variable that is frequently used across studies (e.g. Eff & Routon 2012), but the specific variable used differs by study-for instance, Jackson et al (2019Jackson et al ( , 2020Jackson et al ( , 2023 use the SCCS variables 773 and 774 for internal and external war originally coded by Ross (1983) while other studies (Eff & Routon 2012;Grueter & White 2014;Wilson 2008) use Ember and Ember's 1992a measures, which differ with Ross' coding for some societies, likely because they refer to different time periods (Ember & Ember 1992b).…”

Section: Cultural Databases and Their Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Benefits and Challenges of Linked Datasets for Cliodynamics and Comparative Anthropology

Basava,

François,

Whitehouse

2023

CDN

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The past few decades have witnessed a proliferation of large comparative cultural databases, primarily consisting of contemporary data (e.g., ethnographic writings), but increasingly historical data as well (including archaeological materials). Individually, these databases already serve as valuable resources as evidenced by the growing number of papers utilizing them. However, further benefits could result from merging or linking these data in ways that surpass their original intentions and ambitions. One avenue is the integration of ethnographic and historical data to help remedy the weaknesses of each (e.g., by addressing lacunae, imprecision, bias, subjectivity, and unreliability) and draw on their reciprocal strengths (e.g., by combining longitudinal depth and primary source material) of these different forms of evidence. The work presented here is a further step in that direction. This article shows how efforts to quantitatively examine historical variation in features of warfare benefit from combining ethnographic, historical, and archaeological data. It describes the general challenges faced by combining datasets (e.g. units of analyses, differing variables across datasets, sampling issues, etc.), how these challenges can be mitigated, and what further challenges remain to be addressed. The overall aim is to encourage further research into the benefits and challenges of integrating such datasets.

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Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena

Cited by 13 publications

References 79 publications

Cultural Differences in People's Reactions and Applications of Robots, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence

Cultural Differences in People's Reactions and Applications of Robots, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence

Shifting themes in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion

The Benefits and Challenges of Linked Datasets for Cliodynamics and Comparative Anthropology

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