Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Epiphenom

Home
About

Home
Nonreligious
Religion promotes punishing wrongdoers – but is that a good thing?

Religion promotes punishing wrongdoers – but is that a good thing?

Last updated on: November 12, 2014 at 4:48 am by Epiphenom

Religion promotes punishing wrongdoers – but is that a good thing? 2014-11-12T04:48:59+01:00 Epiphenom

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“Costly punishment” is the term used to describe an interesting phenomenon in which people will punish wrongdoers even if it brings a cost to themselves. For example, you could imagine a situation where a vigilante attempts to beat up a criminal – risky, if the criminal gets the upper hand. It’s an understandable reaction if you are going to have to deal with the individual again.

Yet lab studies show that people will punish misbehaviour even if all the transactions are anonymous and “single-shot”. That’s generally considered to be a good thing, because society benefits (even if the individual doesn’t). The mystery is why that kind of behaviour should persist.

When tested in the lab, the typical set-up goes something like this. Person A gets given some money, which he can share with person B either fairly or unfairly (keeping most for himself). Person B then gets the option to spend some of her money to ‘punish’ person A (by taking some or all of their money away).

Ryan McKay, at the University of London, along with colleagues at University of Zurich, set out to see how religion affects this kind of costly punishment.

They tested a group of 300 Swiss students, mostly Christian (30% Protestant, 28% Catholic, 42% no affiliation). They all took part in round 1 (allocation of money) and all took part in round 2 (option to punish the person they were playing with). But, before round 2, they were subliminally exposed to 1 of 4 different sets of priming words:

religion: (divine, holy, pious, religious);
punishment (revenge, punish, penalty, retribution);
religion–punishment (divine, revenge, pious, punish); and
control (northeast, acoustic, tractor, carton)

Overall there was no effect of the primes on the amount of punishment handed out. The religious were no more likely to punish than were the non-religious, and religious primes had no effect on either the religious or the non-religious.

However, religious primes did affect one group. Those people who had donated to a religious organization in the past year were significantly more likely to punish after they were exposed to religious primes.

That’s an interesting result, because previous studies had found that religious primes affect everyone (religious and non-religious) and previous researchers have suggested that religious primes work by making people feel that they are being watched by a supernatural observer (and so they behave better).

What McKay thinks, however, is that these primes are activating the social conditioning among the ‘engaged’ religious. When people attend religious services, ideals of costly punishment (i.e. sacrifice for the good of the group) are drilled into them. The religious primes in this study activated that social conditioning, resulting in heavier levels of punishment.

Mckay goes on to make a wider claim: that this is evidence that ‘religions’ were developed as a way to increase the survivability of those people and groups who adhere to them. The essence of this argument is that religions are cultural constructions that make use of the errors inherent in our thinking (seeing things that aren’t there, for example) to promote and reinforce beneficial behaviours.

Well, maybe. But in fact this study doesn’t support that claim.

The problem is with the assumption that costly punishment is a good thing (for the group, if not the individual). Recent research suggests that isn’t actually true. It seems that costly punishment is actually a bad strategy for individuals, and also a bad strategy for the group as a whole (the best strategy for all concerned is actually to turn the other cheek).

From this perspective, costly punishment doesn’t promote co-operation (since it sets up cycles of retaliation). What it does, however, is allow hierarchies and dominance to be established.

So that’s the theory. Is there any evidence that this is a problem in real life? Well possibly. You see, it turns out that anti-social punishment (i.e. retaliation against people who engage in ‘costly punishment’ of cheats) seems to be lowest in Westernised, secular cultures. Anti-social punishment is the evil twin of costly punishment, and is the reason costly punishment does not, in fact work too well.

Could it be that religion reinforces a behaviour which actually lowers group fitness?

McKay R, Efferson C, Whitehouse H, & Fehr E (2010). Wrath of God: religious primes and punishment. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society PMID: 21106588

This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 23, 2010

Spirit Possession in Uganda

Next Post

November 30, 2010 The cult of Theoi: sacrificing to the god of uncertainty

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Causes of religion - evolution Causes of religion - psychological Causes of religion - social Demographics Digest Effects of religion - health Effects of religion - psychological Effects of religion - social Notifications Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was the name of the sea Jesus calmed during a storm?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mediterranean Sea Sea of Galilee Red Sea Dead Sea