Publication Date:
2012-05-19
Description:
Religion, in promoting outlandish beliefs and costly rituals, increases ingroup trust but also may increase mistrust and conflict with outgroups. Moralizing gods emerged over the last few millennia, enabling large-scale cooperation, and sociopolitical conquest even without war. Whether for cooperation or conflict, sacred values, like devotion to God or a collective cause, signal group identity and operate as moral imperatives that inspire nonrational exertions independent of likely outcomes. In conflict situations, otherwise mundane sociopolitical preferences may become sacred values, acquiring immunity to material incentives. Sacred values sustain intractable conflicts that defy "business-like" negotiation, but also provide surprising opportunities for resolution.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Atran, Scott -- Ginges, Jeremy -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 May 18;336(6083):855-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1216902.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉CNRS-Institut Jean Nicod, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France. satran@umich.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22605762" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Ceremonial Behavior
;
*Conflict (Psychology)
;
Cooperative Behavior
;
Cultural Evolution
;
Culture
;
Humans
;
Morals
;
Motivation
;
*Religion
;
*Warfare
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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