Details

Subject(s)

• Religion—Philosophy [Browse]
• Evolution—Religious aspects [Browse]

Editor

• Lior, Yair [Browse]
• Lane, Justin E. (Justin Emory), 1987- [Browse]

Series

• Routledge handbooks in religion. [More in this series]
• Routledge Handbooks in Religion

Summary note

"The past two decades have seen a growing interest in evolutionary and scientific approaches to religion. The Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting and emerging field. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the handbook pulls together scholarship in the following areas: evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR), cultural evolution and the complementarity of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science and cultural evolution. Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: Cliodynamics, cultural group selection, costly signalling, dual inheritance theory, literacy, transmitting narratives, prosociality, supernatural punishment, cognition and ritual, meme theory, fusion theory, sexual selection, agency detection, evoked culture, social brain hypothesis, theory of mind, developmental psychology, emergence theory, social learning, cultural cybernetics, cultural epidemiology, evolutionary and cultural psychology, memetics, by-product and adaptationist theories of religion, systems and information theory, and computer modelling. This is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and anthropology, the Handbook will also be very useful to those in related fields, such as psychology, sociology of religion, cognitive biology, and evolutionary biology"-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Source of description

Description based on print version record.

Contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Evolutionary Approaches to Religion
• Historical Background
• Three Waves of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion and Culture
• Contemporary Evolutionary Approaches to Religion
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Cultural Evolution
• Notes
• References
• Part 1 Evolutionary Psychology
• 2 Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology
• 3 Child Development: The Effects of Ritual On Cognitive Development
• 4 Cognition and the History of Religion
• Cognitive Historiography (Of Religion)
• What Is It? What's the Point? And How Do You Do It?
• Introduction: What Is Cognitive Historiography of Religion?
• Historiography
• Religion
• Cognitive Science
• Examples
• Conclusion
• 5 Evoked Culture: Cognitive Mechanisms of Religious Belief and Behavior
• 6 Sacred Values: Identity Fusion, Devoted Actor Theory, and Extremism
• Importance of Identities
• Two Identities
• Approaches to Identification
• Social Identity Theory
• Principles of Identity
• Fusion Theory
• Local Fusion
• Extended Fusion
• Principles of Fusion
• Outputs of Fusion
• Causes of Fusion
• Reflection On Emotional Experiences
• Self-similarity
• Conceptual Ties
• Sacred Values
• Devoted Actor Theory
• Evidence in Support of Devoted Actor Theory
• Issues With Devoted Actor Theory
• Possible Amendments to Devoted Actor Theory
• 7 Sexual Selection: Long-Term Mating Strategies and Religion
• Introduction
• Religion and Conservative Views On Sexuality
• Mating Strategies
• Religion Solves Problems Associated With Long-Term Strategies
• Fertility as Signal
• Mate Guarding
• Women and Religiosity
• References.
• 8 Minimally Counterintuitive Concepts: A Unified Theory in the Cognitive Science of Religion?
• Spread of the God Concept
• The Context-Based Model and Cognitive Science of New Religious Movements
• Postdiction and Social Identity
• Conclusions
• 9 Faces in Clouds and Voices in the Wind: Anthropomorphism, Agency Detection and Human Cognition
• A Brief History of Religion as Anthropomorphism
• Bases of Our Evolutionary and Cognitive Approach
• Theories of Anthropomorphism
• Agency Detection Versus Anthropomorphism
• A Cognitive and Evolutionary Account of Anthropomorphism
• Note
• 10 Social Brain Hypothesis: Dunbar's Number and the Stability of Religious Social Networks
• The Social Brain Hypothesis (SBH)
• "Dunbar's Number" and Its Constraints
• Evolution, Archaeological and the Social Brain Hypothesis
• Social Groups and the Emergence of Language
• Dunbar's Number and Online Social Networks
• Religion and Social Brain Hypothesis
• Identity and Stability of American Christian Congregations
• Appendix: R-Code and Figures
• 11 Atheism: A New Evolutionary Perspective On Non-Belief
• Identifying Atheism in the Present and the Past
• Reverse-Engineering Atheism
• The Phylogeny of Atheism
• The Ontogeny of (A)theism
• The Development of Theistic Thinking
• The Development of Atheistic Thinking
• The Functionally Adaptive Explanation for Atheism
• Atheism as Functionally Adaptive, Similar to Religion
• Group Participation
• Humanistic Concerns
• Punishment and Prosociality
• Meaning in Life
• Belief in Science
• General Effects of Atheist Worldview
• Secularization as a Result of Adaptiveness Redundancy
• Biophysiological Contributions to the Atheism
• 12 Personality and Psychology in the Evolution of Religion
• The Quest for Personality Structure
• The Evolution of Personality
• Religion and Personality
• 13 Hazard Precaution: Examining the Possible Adaptive Value of Ritualized Behavior
• Defining Anxiety
• The Adaptive Value of Anxiety
• Ritual Effects On Anxiety
• Is the Ritual Management of Anxiety Adaptive?
• Part 2 Cultural Evolution
• 14 Introduction to Cultural Evolution
• What Is Evolving?
• What Is Culture?
• What Is Religion?
• What Are Current Themes/Issues in the Evolutionary Science of Religion?
• 15 Cultural Group Selection and the Evolution of Religion
• What Is Cultural Group Selection?
• Cultural Group Selection in Humans
• Religion, Cooperation and Cultural Group Selection
• 16 Costly Signaling: The ABCs of Signaling Theory and Religion
• Religion as Communication
• Behavioral Ecology and Signaling Theory
• Basic Definitions
• Conditions for Reliable Communication
• A Framework for Analyzing Religious Signals
• Content
• Costs
• Context
• Situating Signaling Theory
• Economics
• Future Considerations
• 17 Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs): When They Work and When They Don't
• Credibility Enhancing Displays in Evolutionary Perspective
• CREDs and Religion
• Current Empirical Evidence Linking CREDs to Religious Belief
• Further Implications: Secularization and Religious Hypocrisy
• Limitations and Future Directions
• 18 Dual Inheritance Theory: Religion, Narrative, and Selection
• Dual Inheritance Theory and Niche Construction.
• The Standard View of the Cognitive Science of Religion
• Counterintuitive Concepts as Key Elements of Religious Beliefs
• Factors Affecting the Transmission of Religious Beliefs
• Narrative Interpretations
• The Narrative Species
• Evolutionary Implications
• From Sexually Appealing Beliefs to Sexually Attractive Behavioral Practices
• 19 The Co-Evolution of Religion and Literate Culture
• Defining Literate Behavior
• Did Doctrinal Religions Facilitate the Emergence of Literate Behaviors?
• Writing Follows Meta-Ethic Religious Systems?
• Promising Areas of Research
• 20 Religion and Prosociality: The Naturalization of Norms
• Prosociality: A Slippery Concept
• Mechanisms for Religious Cooperation
• Supernatural Monitoring and Punishment
• Costly Signaling and Collective Action
• Synchrony and Ritual
• Self-Control and Self-Regulation
• Intuitive Cooperation
• Empirical Research and Evidence
• Present-Day Religion and Cooperation
• Secularization and Social Context
• "Little Gods" and Trust
• Mating Strategies and Life History
• Cultural Semantic Networks and Priming
• The Naturalization of Norms
• Disobedient Catholics and Birth Control
• Empirical Consequences
• 21 Big Gods Theory: The Cultural Evolution of Social Complexity and Prosocial Religions
• Disputes About Big Gods
• Chronological Relationship Between Big Gods to Social Complexity
• Suggestions for Future Research in Big Gods Theory
• Complex Adaptive Systems and Self-Organization
• 22 The Evolution of Ritual, Cognition, and Modes of Religiosity During the Agricultural Transition
• The Agricultural Transition
• The Evolution of Ritual
• Ritual and Cognitive Mechanisms.
• Cognitive Archaeology and the Agricultural Transition
• Cultural Evolution, Ritual Transmission and Group Identification
• New Rituals During the Agricultural Transition
• What Facilitated the Emergence of New Rituals?
• Cognitive Evolution Or Cognitive Augmentation During the Agricultural Transition?
• An Enhancement of Semantic Memory
• Identity Fusion Versus Group Identification
• Identity Fusion
• Group Identification
• 23 Meme Theory
• A Short Overview of Meme Theory
• Are Memes Real and Definable?
• Selection and Adaptation in Memetics
• Ritual and Memes
• 24 Institutional Evolution: The Dynamics of Religious Formations
• The Evolution of Religion: What Is Evolving? How Does Selection Operate?
• Conceptualizing Culture and Structure From a Sociological Perspective
• Conceptualizing the Nature of Culture and Social Structure
• Subject to Evolution By Means of Selection
• The Basic Structure of Culture
• Societal-Level Structure and Its Culture
• Institutional-Level Structure and Its Culture
• Organizational-Level Structure and Its Culture
• Group-Level Structure and Its Culture
• Encounter-Level Structure and Its Culture
• The Power of Stratification in the Evolution of Societies
• Toward a More Robust Analysis of Sociocultural Evolution
• The Evolution of Religion: A Sociological Perspective
• The Evolution of Humans and the Origins of Religion: The Effects of Darwinian Selection
• Spencerian Type-1 Selection and the Institutionalization of Religion
• Durkheimian Selection Among Religious Corporate Units
• Spencerian Type-2 Selection and the Effects of Warfare and Conquest On Religion
• Marxian Selection Arising From Inequalities and Stratification On the Basis of Religious Affiliation
• 25 Behavioral Ecology: Niche Construction and Religion.

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ISBN

• 1-000-63841-3
• 1-00-331492-9
• 1-003-31492-9
• 1-000-63838-3

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