Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T21:42:29.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The prosocial benefits of seeing purpose in life events: A case of cultural selection in action?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2016

Konika Banerjee
Konika Banerjee*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511. konika.banerjee@yale.eduhttp://psychology.yale.edu/people/konika-banerjee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Norenzayan et al. propose that religious beliefs with incidental prosocial effects propagated via a long-term process of cultural evolution. Applying their model, I explore a possible candidate target of cultural selection: the teleological view – often culturally elaborated as a belief in karma or fate – that life events occur to punish or reward individuals’ moral behavior.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e3
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banerjee, K. & Bloom, P. (2014) Why did this happen to me? Religious believers' and non-believers' teleological reasoning about life events. Cognition 133:277–303. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.06.017.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Banerjee, K. & Bloom, P. (2015) “Everything happens for a reason:” Children's beliefs about purpose in life events. Child Development 86:503–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bering, J. (2011) The belief instinct: The psychology of souls, destiny, and the meaning of life. Norton.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M. (2006) The folk psychology of souls. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:453–98.Google Scholar
Fein, D. & Stein, G. M. (1977) Immanent punishment and reward in six- and nine-year-old children. Journal of Genetic Psychology 131:91–96.Google Scholar
Heywood, B. T. & Bering, J. M. (2014) “Meant to be”: How religious beliefs and cultural religiosity affect the implicit bias to think teleologically. Religion, Brain and Behavior 4(3):183–201.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Bering, J. M. (2006) Hand of god, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology 4:219–33.Google Scholar
Jose, P. (1990) Just-world reasoning in children's immanent justice judgments. Child Development 61:1024–33.Google Scholar
Lerner, M. J. (1980) The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Norenzayan, A. (2013) Big Gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Norenzayan, A. & Lee, A. (2010) It was meant to happen: Explaining cultural variations in fate attributions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98(5):702–20.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1932/1965) The moral judgment of the child. Trans. Gabain, M.. Free Press. (Original work published 1932.)Google Scholar
Stephens, N. M., Fryberg, S. A., Markus, H. R. & Hamedani, M. G. (2013) Who explains Hurricane Katrina and the Chilean Earthquake as an act of God? The experience of extreme hardship predicts religious meaning-making. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 44(4):606–19.Google Scholar
Willard, A. K. & Norenzayan, A. (2013) Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life's purpose. Cognition 129:379–91. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.07.016.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Young, M. J. & Morris, M. W. (2004) Existential meanings and cultural models: The interplay of personal and supernatural agency in American and Hindu ways of responding to uncertainty. In: Handbook of experimental existential psychology. ed. Greenberg, J., Koole, S. L. & Pyszczynski, T., pp. 215–30. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Young, M. J., Morris, M. W., Burrus, J., Krishnan, L. & Regmi, M. P. (2011) Deity and destiny: Patterns of fatalistic thinking in Christian and Hindu cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 42:1032–55.Google Scholar