Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T18:04:14.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Supernatural agents may have provided adaptive social information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2005

Jesse M. Bering*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR72701http://www.uark.edu/psyc/fbering.html
Todd K. Shackelford*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL33314http://www.psy.fau.edu/tshackelford

Abstract:

Atran & Norenzayan's (A&N's) target article effectively combines the insights of evolutionary biology and interdisciplinary cognitive science, neither of which alone yields sufficient explanatory power to help us fully understand the complexities of supernatural belief. Although the authors' ideas echo those of other researchers, they are perhaps the most squarely grounded in neo-Darwinian terms to date. Nevertheless, A&N overlook the possibility that the tendency to infer supernatural agents' communicative intent behind natural events served an ancestrally adaptive function.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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.)