View source for Evolutionary psychology of religion

{{Short description|Study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles}}
{{Spirituality sidebar|experience}}
The '''evolutionary psychology of religion''' is the study of [[religious belief]] using [[evolutionary psychology]] principles. It is one approach to the [[psychology of religion]]. As with all other organs and organ functions, the [[brain]]'s functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of [[natural selection]] and [[evolution]]. Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand [[cognitive]] processes, [[religion]] in this case, by understanding the survival and reproductive functions they might serve.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Steadman, L. |author2=Palmer, C. |date=2008 |title=The Supernatural and Natural Selection: Religion and Evolutionary Success |publisher=Paradigm}}</ref>
==Mechanisms of evolution==
{{See also|Evolutionary origin of religions}}
[[Scientist]]s generally agree with the idea that a propensity to engage in religious behavior evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. There are two schools of thought. One is that religion itself evolved due to [[natural selection]] and is an [[adaptation]], in which case religion conferred some sort of evolutionary advantage. The other is that religious beliefs and behaviors, such as the concept of a protogod,<ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Turner
| first1 = Léon P.
| chapter = 9: Neither Friends nor Enemies: The Complex Relationship between Cognitive and Humanistic Accounts of Religious Belief
| editor1-last = Watts
| editor1-first = Fraser
| editor2-last = Turner
| editor2-first = Léon P.
| title = Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science: Critical and Constructive Essays
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HVX1AgAAQBAJ
| location = Oxford
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| date = 2014
| page = 162
| isbn = 9780199688081
| access-date = 26 July 2019
| quote = It seems therefore, for Barrett at least, that universal sociocultural factors do have some role to play in the origins of ''all'' proto-god concepts [...].
}}
</ref><ref>
Compare for example:
{{cite book
| last1 = Griffin
| first1 = Daniel F.
| chapter = The Existence and General Characteristics of Our Universe
| title = Greater Than Can Be Conceived: The Rationality of Belief in a God Beyond Comprehension
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UVoI8TurGrYC
| date = 2008
| page = 75
| access-date = 26 July 2019
| quote = As it is currently defined, proto-god has the potential to cause the existence of our universe, but as of yet we have no reason for thinking that it actually ''would''.
}}
</ref>
may have emerged as by-products of other adaptive traits without initially being selected for because of their own benefits.<ref name="Sosis"/><ref name=Watts2015/><ref name=Tamas/> A third suggestion is that different aspects of religion require different evolutionary explanations but also that different evolutionary explanations may apply to several aspects of religion.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lindenfors|first1=Patrik|last2=Svensson|first2=Jonas|date=2021-04-20|title=Evolutionary explanations for religion: An interdisciplinary critical review|url=https://riojournal.com/article/66132/|journal=Research Ideas and Outcomes|language=en|volume=7|pages=e66132|doi=10.3897/rio.7.e66132|s2cid=234492800 |issn=2367-7163|doi-access=free}}</ref>
Religious behavior often involves significant costs—including economic costs, [[celibacy]], dangerous [[ritual]]s, or the expending of time that could be used otherwise. This would suggest that natural selection should act against religious behavior unless it or something else causes religious behavior to have significant advantages.<ref name=Oxford2007>''The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology'', edited by Robin Dunbar and Louise Barret, Oxford University Press, 2007, Chapter 44: "The Evolution of Religion" by Joseph A. Bulbulia</ref>
===Religion as an adaptation===
{{further|Psychological adaptation|Handicap principle|Signalling theory}}
Richard Sosis and Candace Alcorta have reviewed several of the prominent theories for the [[adaptive value]] of religion.<ref name="Sosis">{{cite journal|year= 2003|title= Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: the evolution of religious behavior|journal= Evolutionary Anthropology|volume= 12|issue= 6|doi= 10.1002/evan.10120|pages= 264–274 |last1= Sosis |first1= R. |first2= C. |last2= Alcorta|s2cid= 443130}}</ref> Many are "social solidarity theories", which view religion as having evolved to enhance [[cooperation]] and cohesion within groups. Group membership in turn provides benefits which can enhance an individual's chances for survival and reproduction. These benefits range from coordination advantages<ref name=Tamas>{{Cite journal |title = The deification of historical figures and the emergence of priesthoods as a solution to a network coordination problem |journal = Religion, Brain & Behavior |date = 2015-08-14 |issn = 2153-599X |pages = 307–317 |issue = 4 |doi = 10.1080/2153599X.2015.1063001 |first1 = Tamás |last1 = Dávid-Barrett |first2 = James |last2 = Carney|volume = 6 |s2cid = 146979343 }}</ref> to the facilitation of costly behavior rules.<ref name=Watts2015>{{Cite journal |title = Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia |journal = Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences |date = 2015-04-07 |pmc = 4375858 |pmid = 25740888 |pages = 20142556 |volume = 282 |issue = 1804 |doi = 10.1098/rspb.2014.2556 |first1 = Joseph |last1 = Watts |first2 = Simon J. |last2 = Greenhill |first3 = Quentin D. |last3 = Atkinson |first4 = Thomas E. |last4 = Currie |first5 = Joseph |last5 = Bulbulia |first6 = Russell D. |last6 = Gray}}</ref>
Sosis also researched 200 [[List of American utopian communities|utopian communes]] in the 19th-century United States, both religious and secular (mostly [[Utopian socialism|socialist]]). 39% of the religious communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding while only 6% of the secular communes were.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sosis|first=Richard|s2cid=44050390|title=Religion and Intragroup Cooperation: Preliminary Results of a Comparative Analysis of Utopian Communities|journal=[[Cross-Cultural Research]]|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]]|volume=34|issue=1|year=2000|pages=70–87|doi=10.1177/106939710003400105}}</ref> The number of costly sacrifices that a religious commune demanded from its members had a linear effect on its longevity, while in secular communes demands for costly sacrifices did not correlate with longevity and the majority of the secular communes failed within 8 years. Sosis cites anthropologist [[Roy Rappaport]] in arguing that rituals and laws are more effective when [[Sanctification |sacralized]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sosis|first1=Richard|last2=Bressler|first2=Eric R.|title=Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion|journal=[[Cross-Cultural Research]]|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]]|volume=37|issue=2|year=2003|pages=211–239|doi=10.1177/1069397103037002003|citeseerx=10.1.1.500.5715|s2cid=7908906}}</ref> Social psychologist [[Jonathan Haidt]] cites Sosis's research in his 2012 book ''[[The Righteous Mind]]'' as the best evidence that religion is an adaptive solution to the [[free-rider problem]] by enabling cooperation without [[kin selection|kinship]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Haidt|first=Jonathan|author-link=Jonathan Haidt|title=The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion|publisher=[[Vintage Books]]|location=New York|year=2012|pages=298–299|title-link=The Righteous Mind|isbn=978-0307455772}}</ref> [[Evolutionary medicine]] researcher [[Randolph M. Nesse]] and theoretical biologist [[Mary Jane West-Eberhard]] have argued instead that because humans with [[Altruism (biology)|altruistic]] tendencies are preferred as social partners they receive [[Inclusive fitness|fitness advantages]] by [[social selection]],{{refn|group=list|name=socialselection|<ref name="Nesse 2019 pp. 172–76">{{cite book|last=Nesse|first=Randolph|author-link=Randolph M. Nesse|title=Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry|publisher=[[Dutton (imprint)|Dutton]]|year=2019|pages=172–176|isbn=978-1101985663}}</ref><ref name="West-Eberhard 1975">{{cite journal|last=West-Eberhard|first=Mary Jane|title=The Evolution of Social Behavior by Kin Selection|journal=[[The Quarterly Review of Biology]]|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|year=1975|volume=50|issue=1|pages=1–33|doi=10.1086/408298|jstor=2821184|s2cid=14459515}}</ref><ref name="West-Eberhard 1979">{{cite journal|last=West-Eberhard|first=Mary Jane|title=Sexual Selection, Social Competition, and Evolution|journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]]|publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]]|year=1979|volume=123|issue=4|pages=222–34|jstor=986582}}</ref><ref name="Nesse 2007">{{cite journal|last=Nesse|first=Randolph M.|author-link=Randolph M. Nesse|title=Runaway social selection for displays of partner value and altruism|journal=[[Biological Theory (journal)|Biological Theory]]|year=2007|volume=2|issue=2|publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media]]|pages=143–55|doi=10.1162/biot.2007.2.2.143|s2cid=195097363|citeseerx=10.1.1.409.3359}}</ref>}} with Nesse arguing further that social selection enabled humans as a species to become extraordinarily cooperative and capable of creating [[culture]].<ref name="Nesse 2009">{{cite book|last=Nesse|first=Randolph M.|author-link=Randolph M. Nesse|chapter=10. Social Selection and the Origins of Culture|editor1-last=Schaller|editor1-first=Mark|editor-link1=Mark Schaller|editor2-last=Heine|editor2-first=Steven J.|editor-link2=Steven Heine (psychologist)|editor3-last=Norenzayan|editor3-first=Ara|editor4-last=Yamagishi|editor4-first=Toshio|editor5-last=Kameda|editor5-first=Tatsuya|title=Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind|place=Philadelphia|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]]|year=2009|pages=137–50|isbn=978-0805859119}}</ref>
Edward O. Wilson's theory of "eusociality" strongly suggests group cohesion as the impetus for the development of religion.  Wilson posits that the individuals of a small percentage of species (including [[homo sapiens]], ants, termites, bees and a few other species) replicated their genes by adhering to one of a number of competing groups.  He further postulates that, in homo sapiens, thanks to their enormous forebrains, there evolved a complex interplay between group evolution and individual evolution within a group.<ref name="Wilson">{{cite book|title= The Social Conquest of Earth|year= 2007|first= Edward O.|last= Wilson|publisher= Liveright|isbn= 978-0871403636}}</ref>{{pn|date =October 2018}}
These social solidarity theories may help to explain the painful or dangerous nature of many religious rituals. [[Handicap principle| Costly-signaling theory]] suggests that such rituals might serve as public and hard-to-fake signals that an individual's commitment to the group is sincere. Since there would be a considerable benefit in trying to cheat the system—taking advantage of group-living benefits without taking on any possible costs—the ritual would not be something simple that can be taken lightly.<ref name="Sosis"/> [[War]]fare is a good example of a cost of group living, and Richard Sosis, Howard C. Kress, and James S. Boster carried out a cross-cultural survey which demonstrated that men in [[societies]] which engage in war do submit to the costliest rituals.<ref>{{cite journal |year= 2007 |title= Scars for war: evaluating alternative signaling explanations for cross-cultural variance in ritual costs |doi= 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.02.007 |journal= Evolution and Human Behavior |volume= 28 |issue= 4| pages= 234–247 |last1= Sosis |first1= R. |last2= Kress |first2= H. C. |first3= J. S. |last3= Boster|citeseerx= 10.1.1.628.3646 }}</ref>
Studies that show more direct positive associations between religious practice and health and longevity are more controversial. Harold G. Koenig and Harvey J. Cohen summarized and assessed the results of 100 evidence-based studies that systematically examined the relationship between religion and human well-being, finding that 79% showed a positive influence.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Link between Religion and Health: Psychoneuroimmunology and the Faith Factor|publisher= Oxford University Press|location= Oxford|year= 2001|first1= Harold G. |last1= Koenig |first2= Harvey J. |last2= Cohen|isbn= 0-19-514360-4}}</ref> Such studies rate in mass media, as seen in a 2009 [[NPR]] program which covered University of Miami professor Gail Ironson's findings that belief in [[God]] and a strong sense of [[spirituality]] correlated with a lower viral load and improved immune-cell levels in HIV patients.<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104351710|title= Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?|last= Hagerty|first= Barbara|year= 2009|publisher= National Public Radio|access-date= 2009-12-19 | quote = Ironson says over time, those who turned to God after their diagnosis had a much lower viral load and maintained those powerful immune cells at a much higher rate than those who turned away from God.}}</ref> Richard P. Sloan of Columbia University, in contrast, told the ''New York Times'' that "there is no really good compelling evidence that there is a relationship between religious involvement and health."<ref>{{cite news|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E0DE1730F934A35756C0A9649C8B63|title= Religion and Health: New Research Revives an Old Debate|date= May 7, 2002|access-date= 2009-12-19|newspaper= New York Times | first= Mary | last= Duenwald}}</ref> Debate continues over the validity of these findings, which do not necessarily prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between religion and health. Mark Stibich claims there is a clear correlation but that the reason for it remains unclear.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://longevity.about.com/od/longevityboosters/a/religion_life.htm|title=How Religion Can Improve Health|access-date=2011-09-01|archive-date=2016-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303200551/http://longevity.about.com/od/longevityboosters/a/religion_life.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> A criticism of such [[placebo|placebo effects]], as well as the advantage of religion giving a sense of meaning, is that it seems likely that less complex mechanisms than religious behavior could achieve such goals.<ref name=Oxford2007/>
===Religion as a by-product===
{{See also|Agent detection}}
[[Stephen Jay Gould]] cites religion as an example of an [[exaptation]] or [[Spandrel (biology)| spandrel]], but he does not himself select a definite trait that he thinks natural selection has actually acted on. He does, however, bring up [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]'s suggestion that our large brains, which evolved for other reasons, led to [[consciousness]]. The beginning of consciousness forced humans to deal with the concept of personal [[Death|mortality]]. Religion may have been one solution to this problem.<ref name="exaptation">{{cite journal|last= Gould|first= S. J.|year= 1991|title= Exaptation: a crucial tool for an evolutionary psychology|journal= Journal of Social Issues|volume= 47|issue= 3|pages= 43–65|doi= 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1991.tb01822.x}}</ref>
Other researchers have proposed specific psychological processes that natural selection may have fostered alongside religion. Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm ([[agent detection]]), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events ([[etiology]]), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions ([[theory of mind]]). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life.<ref>{{Cite journal |pmid= 16035401 |title= Religion's evolutionary landscape: counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion |year= 2004 |publisher= [[Behavioral and Brain Sciences]] |last1= Atran |first1= S |last2= Norenzayan |first2= A |volume= 27 |issue= 6 |pages= 713–30; discussion 730–70 |journal= The Behavioral and Brain Sciences |doi= 10.1017/s0140525x04000172 |s2cid= 1177255 |url= https://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ijn_00000596/file/ijn_00000596_02.pdf }}</ref>
[[Pascal Boyer]] suggests in his book ''[[Religion Explained]]'' (2001) that there is no simple explanation for religious [[consciousness]]. He builds on the ideas of cognitive anthropologists [[Dan Sperber]] and [[Scott Atran]], who argued that religious cognition represents a by-product of various evolutionary adaptations, including [[folk psychology]]. He argues that one such factor is that it has, in most cases, been advantageous for humans to remember "minimally counter-intuitive" concepts that are somewhat different from the daily routine and somewhat violate innate expectations about how the world is constructed. A god that is in many aspects like humans but much more powerful is such a concept, while the often much more abstract god discussed at length by [[theologian]]s is often too counter-intuitive. Experiments support that religious people think about their god in [[anthropomorphic]] terms even if this [[contradiction|contradicts]] the more complex theological doctrines of their religion.<ref name=Oxford2007/>
Pierre Lienard and Pascal Boyer suggest that humans evolved a "hazard-precaution system" which allowed them to detect potential threats in the environment and to attempt to respond appropriately.<ref>{{cite journal|year= 2006|title= Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of ritualized behavior|journal= American Anthropologist|volume= 108|issue= 4|pages= 824–827|last1= Lienard |first1= P. |first2= P. |last2= Boyer |doi= 10.1525/aa.2006.108.4.814}}</ref> Several features of ritual behaviors, often a major feature of religion, are held to trigger this system. These include the occasion for the ritual (often the prevention or elimination of danger or evil), the harm believed to result from nonperformance of the ritual, and the detailed prescriptions for proper performance of the ritual. Lienard and Boyer discuss the possibility that a sensitive hazard-precaution system itself may have provided fitness benefits, and that religion then "associates individual, unmanageable [[anxiety|anxieties]] with coordinated action with others and thereby makes them more tolerable or meaningful".
[[Justin L. Barrett]] in ''Why Would Anyone Believe in God?'' (2004) suggests that belief in God is natural because it depends on mental tools possessed by all human beings. He suggests that the structure and development of human minds make belief in the existence of a supreme god (with properties such as being superknowing, superpowerful and [[immortality|immortal]]) highly attractive. He also compares belief in God to belief in other minds, and devotes a chapter to looking at the evolutionary psychology of [[atheism]]. He suggests that one of the fundamental mental modules in the brain is the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD), another potential system for identifying danger. This HADD may confer a survival benefit even if it is over-sensitive: it is better to avoid an imaginary [[predator]] than be killed by a real one. This would tend to encourage belief in [[ghost|ghosts and spirits]].<ref>{{cite book|last= Barrett|first= Justin L.|title= Why Would Anyone Believe in God|chapter= 3|isbn= 0-7591-0667-3|year= 2004|publisher= AltaMira Press}}</ref> According to Justin L. Barrett, having a [[scientific]] explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. "Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does?"<ref>[[The New York Times]] [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html Darwin's God] March 4, 2007</ref>
Though [[hominid]]s probably began using their emerging cognitive abilities to meet basic needs like nutrition and mates, [[Terror Management Theory]] argues that this happened before they had reached the point where significant self- (and thus end-of-self-) awareness arose. Awareness of [[death]] became a highly disruptive byproduct of prior adaptive functions. The resulting anxiety threatened to undermine these very functions and thus needed amelioration. Any social formation or practice that was to be widely accepted by the masses needed to provide a means of managing such terror. The main strategy to do so was to "become an individual of value in a world of meaning&nbsp;… acquiring [[self-esteem]] [via] the creation and maintenance of culture", as this would counter the sense of insignificance represented by death and provide: 1) symbolic immortality through the legacy of a culture that lives on beyond the physical self ("earthly significance") 2) literal immortality, the promise of an [[afterlife]] or continued existence featured in religions ("cosmic significance").<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Landau | first1 = M. J. | last2 = Solomon | first2 = S. | last3 = Pyszczynski | first3 = T. | last4 = Greenberg | first4 = J. | year = 2007 | title = On the compatibility of terror management theory and perspectives on human evolution | journal = Evolutionary Psychology | volume = 5 | issue = 3| pages = 476–519 | doi = 10.1177/147470490700500303 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
===Religion as a meme===
{{See also|Memes|Memetics}}
[[Richard Dawkins]] suggests in ''[[The Selfish Gene]]'' (1976) that [[meme|cultural memes]] function like genes in that they are subject to natural selection. In ''[[The God Delusion#Religion and morality|The God Delusion]]'' (2006)  Dawkins further argues that because religious truths cannot be questioned,{{cn|date=July 2019}} their very nature encourages religions to spread like "mind [[virus]]es". In such a conception, it is necessary that the individuals who are unable to question their beliefs are more biologically fit than individuals who are capable of questioning their beliefs. Thus, it could be concluded that sacred [[scripture]]s or [[oral tradition]]s created a behavioral pattern that elevated biological fitness for believing individuals. Individuals who were capable of challenging such beliefs, even if the beliefs were enormously improbable, became rarer and rarer in the population. (See [[denialism]].)
This model holds that religion is a byproduct of the cognitive modules in the human brain that arose in the evolutionary past to deal with problems of survival and reproduction. Initial concepts of supernatural agents may arise in the tendency of humans to "overdetect" the presence of other humans or predators (for example: momentarily mistaking a vine for a snake). For instance, a man might report that he felt something sneaking up on him, but it vanished when he looked around.<ref>{{cite book|last= Guthrie|first= Stewart Elliot|title= Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion |publisher= Oxford University Press|year= 1995|isbn= 0-19-506901-3}}</ref>
Stories of these experiences are especially likely to be retold, passed on and embellished due to their descriptions of standard ontological categories (person, artifact, animal, plant, natural object) with counterintuitive properties (humans that are invisible, houses that remember what happened in them, etc.). These stories become even more salient when they are accompanied by activation of non-violated expectations for the ontological category (houses that "remember" activates our intuitive psychology of mind; i.e. we automatically attribute thought processes to them).<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/papers/boyer_religious_concepts.htm|title= Functional Origins of Religious concepts|last= Boyer|first= Pascal|access-date= 2009-12-19|author-link= Pascal Boyer|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091010010146/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/papers/boyer_religious_concepts.htm|archive-date= 2009-10-10|url-status= dead}}</ref>
One of the attributes of our intuitive psychology of mind is that humans are interested in the affairs of other humans. This may result in the tendency for concepts of supernatural agents to inevitably cross-connect with human intuitive [[morality|moral]] feelings (evolutionary [[behavior]]al guidelines). In addition, the presence of dead bodies creates an uncomfortable cognitive state in which dreams and other mental modules (person identification and behavior prediction) continue to run decoupled from reality, producing incompatible intuitions that the dead are somehow still around. When this is coupled with the human predisposition to see misfortune as a social event (as someone's [[responsibility (disambiguation)|responsibility]] rather than the outcome of mechanical processes) it may activate the intuitive "willingness to make exchanges" module of the human theory of minds, compelling the bereaved to try to interact and bargain with supernatural agents ([[ritual]]).<ref name="boyer">
{{cite book
|last= Boyer
|first= Pascal
|title= Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
|publisher= Basic Books
|year= 2001
|author-link= Pascal Boyer
|isbn= 0-465-00695-7
|url-access= registration
|url= https://archive.org/details/religionexplaine00boye
}}
</ref>
In a large enough group, some individuals will seem better skilled at these rituals than others and will become specialists. As societies grow and encounter other societies, competition will ensue and a "survival of the fittest" effect may cause the practitioners to modify their concepts to provide a more abstract, more widely acceptable version. Eventually the specialist practitioners form a cohesive group or [[guild]] with its attendant political goals (religion).<ref name="boyer"/>
==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
*[[Attachment theory and psychology of religion]]
*[[Steven Mithen#Cognitive fluidity|Cognitive fluidity]]
*[[Cognitive science of religion]]
*[[Genetic fallacy]]
*[[Group cohesiveness]]
*[[Origin of morality]]
*[[Self-sacrifice]]
{{div col end}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
'''Bundled references'''
{{reflist|group=list}}
==Further reading==
*[http://www.evolutionofgod.net/ Robert Wright´s "The Evolution of God"]
*[https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195098919 Stewart Guthrie Faces in the clouds A New Theory of Religion] {{ISBN|0-19-509891-9}}.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080509063432/http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2004_10_29_religion.htm Evolutionary psychology of religion] [[Steven Pinker]].
*[https://archive.today/20120805164430/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/webdocs/spandrels.html Adaptations, Exaptations, and Spandrels]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=7-3UvJk5XY8C&pg=PA235&dq=religion+exaptation&ei=IbtoR5iaD4v8sQOgn62-Ag&sig=zzFvCIcvIULWFyXx8ED5tEfh0tc#PPA238,M1 Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion ] {{ISBN|1-59385-088-3}}
*[[Scott Atran|Atran, Scott]] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195178033/ In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion ] {{ISBN|0-19-517803-3}}
*[http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/ps/docs/diesendruck/9.pdf Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function ] [[Pascal Boyer]]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=o4J2AjN2JXAC&pg=PA43&dq=todd+tremlin&sig=JLt0_heOblsS4etSaWM-scLFAw8#PPA16,M1  Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion By Todd Tremlin], 2006 {{ISBN|0-19-530534-5}}
* [http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/RichersonNewsonReligionAdaptive.pdf Is Religion Adaptive? Yes, No, Neutral, but Mostly, We Don't Know]
==External links==
*[http://www.iacsr.com/ International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion]
{{religion topics}}
{{evolutionary psychology}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evolutionary Psychology Of Religion}}
[[Category:Evolutionary psychology]]
[[Category:Psychology of religion]]