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Kin selection favours religious traditions : ancestor worship as a cultural descendant-leaving strategy
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dc.contributor.author | Stucky, Kerstin Inge | |
dc.contributor.author | Gardner, Andy | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2023-06-06T15:30:06Z | |
dc.date.available | 2023-06-06T15:30:06Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-06-05 | |
dc.identifier | 286093759 | |
dc.identifier | 4f041bf2-e781-48df-b343-72f095498f02 | |
dc.identifier | 85161545491 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Stucky , K I & Gardner , A 2023 , ' Kin selection favours religious traditions : ancestor worship as a cultural descendant-leaving strategy ' , Religion, Brain & Behavior , vol. Latest Articles . https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2023.2215854 | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 2153-5981 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10023/27754 | |
dc.description | Funding: This research was supported by a European Research Council Consolidator (grant no. 771387). | en |
dc.description.abstract | Recent years have seen renewed interest in the role of religious systems as drivers of the evolution of cooperation in human societies. One suggestion is that a cultural tradition of ancestor worship might have evolved as a "descendant-leaving strategy" of ancestors by encouraging increased altruism particularly between distant kin. Specifically, Coe and others have suggested a mechanism of cultural transmission exploiting social learning biases, whereby ancestors have been able to establish parental manipulation of kin recognition and perceived relatedness as a traditional behavior, leading to increased altruism among co-descendants and thereby maximizing the ancestor’s long-term inclusive fitness. Here, we develop a demographically explicit model in order to quantify the resulting increase in altruism and concomitant “ancestor-descendant conflict”, and to determine the evolutionary feasibility of religiously motivated cultural norms that promote altruism among co-descendants. Our analysis reveals that such norms could indeed drive an overall increase in altruism with potential for ancestor-descendant conflict, particularly in low-dispersal settings. Moreover, we find that natural selection can favor traditions encouraging increased altruism towards co-descendants under a range of conditions, with the inclusive-fitness costs of enacting an inappropriately high level of altruism being offset by inclusive-fitness benefits derived from the cultural tradition facilitating kin recognition. | |
dc.format.extent | 14 | |
dc.format.extent | 1939652 | |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartof | Religion, Brain & Behavior | en |
dc.subject | Ancestor-descendant conflict | en |
dc.subject | Cooperation | en |
dc.subject | Cultural tradition | en |
dc.subject | Gene-culture conflict | en |
dc.subject | Inclusive fitness | en |
dc.subject | Kin selection | en |
dc.subject | Mathematical model | en |
dc.subject | Religion | en |
dc.subject | BL Religion | en |
dc.subject | RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry | en |
dc.subject | T-NDAS | en |
dc.subject.lcc | BL | en |
dc.subject.lcc | RC0321 | en |
dc.title | Kin selection favours religious traditions : ancestor worship as a cultural descendant-leaving strategy | en |
dc.type | Journal article | en |
dc.contributor.sponsor | European Research Council | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. School of Biology | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. Centre for Biological Diversity | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit | en |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1080/2153599X.2023.2215854 | |
dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | en |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | 771387 | en |
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