The cognitive and cultural foundations of moral behavior

Abstract

Does moral culture contribute to the evolution of cooperation? Here, we examine individuals' and communities' models of what it means to be good and bad and how they correspond to corollary behavior across a variety of socioecological contexts. Our sample includes over 600 people from eight different field sites that include foragers, horticulturalists, herders, and the fully marketreliant. We first examine the universals and particulars of explicit moral models. We then use these moral models to assess their role in the outcome of an economic experiment designed to detect systematic, dishonest rule-breaking favoritism. We show that individuals are slightly more inclined to play by the rules when their moral models include the task-relevant virtues of "honesty" and "dishonesty." We also find that religious beliefs are better predictors of honest play than these virtues. The predictive power of these values' and beliefs' local prevalence, however, remains inconclusive. In summary, we find that religious beliefs and moral models may help promote honest behavior that may widen the breadth of human cooperation.

The Perception of Organisational Nepotism Depending on the Membership in Selected Christian Churches

“…In general, religion has a positive influence on fostering ethical behavior (Ananthram and Christopher 2016;Koslowski 2001;Purzycki et al 2018). Together with economics and ethics, it creates a triad, within the framework of which ethics compensates for the imperfections of economics and religion compensates for the imperfections of ethics (Koslowski 2001).…”

The Minds of God(s) and Humans: Differences in Mind Perception in Fiji and North America

“…Second, we looked at how the ratings for these factors related to beliefs about the tendency of humans and gods to reward and punish others. Reward and punishment are one of the primary ways gods are believed to interact with humans and form much of the foundation for the moral role of these agents across societies (Johnson, 2015;Norenzayan et al, 2016;Purzycki et al, 2016Purzycki et al, , 2018. Similarly, social punishment by other humans is one of the foundations for enforcing normative behavior in cooperative societies (Boyd, Gintis, Bowles, & Richerson, 2003;Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003;Fehr & Gachter, 2005;Henrich et al, 2006).…”

Preferences and constraints: The value of economic games for studying human sociality

“…Many factors may contribute to an individual's social preferences, including their sentiments-their attitudes and emotions towards particular people [32] (see also [33,34])-and their assets, such as their perceived socioeconomic status [28] and their housing and food security [35]. Importantly, individuals cannot always act according to their private preferences in real life due to constraints on their behavior from cultural institutions (e.g., moral culture, such as notions of what makes someone good or bad [36]) and social obligations (e.g., when money is requested, one must share [37,38]). In other words, social structure constrains an individual's agency with consequences, foregrounding some preferences and masking others [39].…”

“…whether moral values and belief in morally-concerned deities affect rule-following [36,[47][48][49][50][51].…”