Religion as a Reproductive Strategy

Jacob Von Feldt

Anthropology 359

The Anthropology of Sex

Fall 2014

Abstract

Individuals change their religiosity intermittently. For a

long time the development and adherence to religion outside of

theological reasons has been attributed to social cooperation.

Studies have shown that belief in god and other theological

doctrine is correlated with an individual’s weight on social

morals. However new evidence shows that there is a third variable

that seems to diminish this correlation, reproductive strategy.

Individuals adopt reproductive strategies that best enhance their

reproductive success. Individuals who select monogamy do so to

decrease risks associated with losing to promiscuous strategists.

Religion is advantageous for monogamists because it promotes long

term relationships with one partner and discourages infidelity.

Due to the protection religion provides individuals looking for

exclusive relationships, those who pursue such a strategy are

more likely to be religious. Additionally they will increase or

decrease their religiosity based on environmental cues such as

mate competition. A person’s fluctuation in religious devotion

and attendance is influenced by their approach to sex and

parenting. Much less than previously thought is due to personal

preferences for social behavior.

Keywords: Religiosity Reproductive StrategiesSocial Cooperation

Introduction: God, Morals and Your Sex Life

The amount of investment in religion fluctuates from person

to person. While some of this is due to cultural causes, it is a

common characteristic of almost all societies to have a presence

of religion and fluctuations of belief among individuals in their

religion. Additionally, a person’s strength in their belief in a

religion is not rigid but rather can and often does change over

their lifetime. While humans follow patterns of religious

development, all patterns exhibit changes throughout a person’s

life. (McCullough et al 2005) Several hypotheses have been

developed to address the fluctuation in religious fervor over

one’s lifetime.

The most prevalent and common answer to religiosity and the

success of religious adoption is social cooperation. The dominate

idea in social cooperation theories is that having a widespread

belief system that promotes altruistic and unselfish behaviors

increases the fitness of a group (West, Griffin and Gardner

2007). The perceived benefits of this cause individuals to pick

up or further dedicate themselves to religion. While this is a

great idea, this system is at risk of being taken advantage of by

3

those looking to benefit without having to expend effort, often

called free loaders. It is necessary to have the ability to

identify and prevent cheating (Chapuisat 2009). In the context of

religion a supernatural or higher power allows for punishment

that enforces social cooperation and it has the benefit of always

(or implying such) identifying the cheater (Johnson and Bering

2006: 221).

An alternative hypothesis postulates that there is a

correlation between reproductive strategies and religiosity. The

idea is that the reason for religious adoption and adherence in

the US and other historically Christian countries is to create a

community of individuals that share a similar sexually monogamous

and high investment reproductive strategy (Weeden, Cohen and

Kendrick 2008).

The paper will begin by discussing the social cooperation

theory and how it relates to the development of religion and its

correlation with religiosity in present day societies. In the

next section the argument will be made that religion is less

about social behavior and actually a product of human

4

reproduction strategies, in that differences in religious fervor

are actually a byproduct of differentiation in mating and

parental investment. Finally the paper will argue that although

social cooperation has played a role in the development of

religion, changes in religiosity are due to the plasticity of

sexual strategies.

It is important to note that these ideas and this paper do

not look to explain or justify important theological ideas. The

arguments made here and in articles referenced do not look to

answer any questions about the existence of god. There is not

attempt to undermine the importance of religion in a spiritual

sense or cut out deities as the reason for the creation and

continuation of religion. The idea is that there may be

alternative reasons for adoption of religion outside of these

constructs and that these factors play an influential role in the

degree of religiosity an individual adopts.

Be Nice and Go to Church

5

It is important to lay out the background and implications

for historic development of religion that the social cooperation

hypothesis implies. The foundation for this idea is essentially

altruism. Human culture benefits from creating communities that

incorporate unselfish behavior that increase the overall success

of the society. Within the context of natural selection, altruism

is chosen for at a group level rather than the individual. The

inherent problem with participating in such a community is that

there will be outside individuals that look to benefit from the

altruism of others without returning the favor. In essence it is

necessary that everyone contribute in such a community to

maintain the cost-to-benefit ratio that makes altruism

worthwhile. In order to enforce social cooperation and diminish

cheating the society needs a way to enforce rules (Johnson and

Bering 2006). This can be understood and is visible in modern

society in a number of ways. One of the most obvious ways is

government. Modern governments for the most part revolve around

the idea of the social contract. People come together in order to

create a stronger entity. Individuals are asked to give up some

of their rights or physical possessions in order to maintain this

6

community. People who act in selfish ways (murder, stealing,

traffic violations) are punished by the government to maintain

order and a balance in the society.

Enforcement of altruistic behavior may have an earlier

origination in religion. Societies looking to encourage social

behaviors may offer rewards and punishment to prompt such

behaviors. Rewards offer advantages for participating in the

society but do nothing to prevent those acting in direct conflict

with the rules (Johnson and Bering 2006). Punishment is a much

more effective deterrent. Having a supernatural enforcer of rules

provides the ultimate deterrent from cheating. With the belief in

a higher power, any breaking of the rules will be perceived as

leading to direct and immediate punishment by the deity. This

relieves enforcement costs, such as monitoring behavior and

administering punishments, previously shouldered by the community

(Johnson and Bering 2006).

These foundations have several implications for social

cooperation and religiosity. Any individual who has interests in

selfish behavior and acting against the rules would seem to be

7

better off without a supernatural power. Additionally those who

prefer to participate in prosocial behavior and maintain

altruistic communities would prefer to buy into religion to

encourage social behavior. There is such a correlation, as those

who are more likely to find moral transgressions less permissible

also have increased religious participation (Atkinson and Bourrat

2010).

The social component of religion is one that is hard to

overlook. It is an integral part of religion. It is very logical

for the individual differences in religiosity to be a byproduct

of individual differences in the value of social behavior. Those

persons with low willingness to give up rights or contribute to

the community will fall into the free loader category. Free

loaders will not participate in the cross-cultural social

communities created by religion that have strong desires to

punish cheaters to avoid constant punishment and outsider status

(Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan 2010). In as much as one of the

major components of religions is an omnipresent force to impose

social rules on its members, religion is one community where

selfish individuals are less likely to be found. The alternative 8

for such individuals is then to decrease their religiosity in

order to avoid punishments from such organizations. Since

religion is not solely a component of social behaviors there is

no need to abandon the religion completely. Alternatively

cheating individuals may have lower religious participation so

that they have less guilt and shame as a result of their

antisocial behaviors. This seems to be more of a self-governing

mechanism.

One evident and evolutionary beneficial trait humans

demonstrate is altruism. Humans, among other species, have long

built societies that encourage social behavior to better the

lives of all their members. While government often serves the

purpose of such groups, enforcement costs and costs of

maintaining such an entity can be high. Social communities find

a natural ally with religion which promotes social behavior while

having a higher power that provides all necessary regulation.

Participation in religion and its social communities are based on

a member’s willingness and desire to demonstrate and perform

prosocial acts. If it is not in their interests they will

9

decrease their participation. This can be seen in long term

lifestyles or short term fluctuations.

How Your Church Attendance Relates to Your One Night Stand Count

An alternative hypothesis for the differences in religiosity

arises from the variety of sexual reproduction strategies. As

human reproduction has evolved a number of approaches to mating

have arisen. Monogamy exists among humans and a number of other

species. Just as interwoven into culture is polygamy. Polygamy

exists in its two forms, polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny, having

multiple wives, is more common than its counterpart. Practicing

partial or intermittent polygyny is even more common.

The difference in the strategy lies in the number of

partners but just as importantly in parental investment.

Monogamous relationships focus on mating with one partner to have

high amounts of fertility. This strategy also focuses on high

parental investment from the male as he has only one partner and

fewer children to care for. The alternate approach is to go for

quantity. Polygyny focuses on males reproducing with many females

10

to increase the number of children they have. This however places

a constraint on the amount of investment they can make.

Having multiple possible strategies creates a clash among

cultures competing for long term partners or short term mates. In

order to ensure reproductive success it becomes evolutionarily

more advantageous for the adopters of monogamy to associate with

individuals with similar strategies. For males this ensures

paternity and reduces the chances of cuckoldry. For females this

diminishes the chances of male abandonment (Mccullogh et al

2012). As a consequence it becomes advantageous to create and

adhere to a set of moral rules that minimize these risks. A

popular entity in which to incorporate these morals is religion.

Without respect to the theology, one role of religion is to

support strong families and marriages (Weeden, Cohen and Kenrick

2008).

The foundation for the Reproductive Religiosity model lies

in the plasticity of individuals in their mating strategies.

Individuals change their approach to reproduction and there are

strong indications of when they do so. Characteristics associated

11

with sexual dimorphism, which develops due to more competitive

and promiscuous strategies, and with sexual jealousy, which

develops with high fidelity, demonstrates anatomically that

humans have adopted many approaches. In order to decide which

strategy to adopt, a person must decide what the advantages and

disadvantages of each strategy will be for them. With a variety

of strategies available humans must adopt a particular strategy

based on their characteristics and environment (Kirkpatrick 2005:

179). This depends on physical characteristics such as good looks

which particularly skews male reproductive success. Males with

greater physical symmetry, which reflects their genetic health,

are more likely to pursue short term mating strategies because

they will be chosen frequently by women (Pillsworth and Haselton

2006).

It also depends on environmental cues such as availability

of resources and mate competition. Life History Theory, the idea

that organisms allocate resources and effort differently based on

events in their life, makes a lot of sense in this context.

Individuals in unstable environments will be more promiscuous

than those in stable environments (Figueredo et all 2006). Life 12

History theory postulates that events such age of first

reproductive event, stability of environment, or number of

children at a given age, actually change the reproduction of an

organism. This is done to maximize the reproductive success based

on current environment (Phillips, Brown and Shine 2010). It

makes sense then that changing conditions or experiencing one of

these events will change an individual’s reproductive strategy

and subsequently there religious approach. It is important to

recognize that there is high plasticity in terms of what

reproductive strategy is best for any individual or for an

individual in a temporary state. It is common for those in

environments with a high percentage of males to have higher

amounts of monogamy and those with a higher ratio of females to

have more male promiscuity (Li et al 2010). Statistical insights

of reproductive strategies for good looking males and temporary

gender imbalances in the population show that individuals make

decision about their reproductive strategy based on their

environment. Additionally Life History Theory suggests that these

decisions are based on other environmental cues and life events.

13

Changing reproductive strategies mean changing religiosity to fit

into the best environment for an individual’s sexual lifestyle

There is strong support that ties restrictive mating

strategies to religion. Exposure to religious concepts changes

behaviors and abilities of men that are closely related to mating

strategy. Such exposure decreases the physical endurance of

males and increases the likelihood that they will choose long

term rewards over lesser short term rewards. Both the short

term/high risk tendency and physical competition are more

prevalent in species with high mate competition (McCullogh et al

2012). This suggests that religion restricts reproductive

strategies that are not monogamy.

There is also evidence suggesting that individual

religiosity is dependent on mate competition. People are more

likely to self-identify as religious if there exists a high level

of competition from the same sex or there are a number of more

sexually fit individuals in their environment (Li et al 2010). In

high competition scenarios humans do better if they adopt

monogamous strategies because it reduces the chances that they

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don’t mate while competitors reproduce with all available mates.

This postulates that when an individual senses they would do

better in a monogamous relationship they become more religious.

Pick Your Religion Carefully; it is your Next Sex Support Group

While both social cooperation and Reproductive Religiosity

have strong ties to religion their modern importance seems to

differ. Social cooperation has a stronger argument when

supporting the spread and original success of religion and may be

more pertinent to religions that don’t practice monogamy. In

early societies it was important to create altruistic cultures

that would increase the fitness of the group. Religion was a

natural outlet to encourage such behavior and having a built-in

enforcement was important at a time when policing behavior was

hard, and it was easy to cheat.

A problem with the cooperation model is the lack of ability

for an individual to change their short term social behaviors.

When only considering religion, an individual can change their

participation if being religious conflicts with their ideal

15

behaviors. However in modern civilization there is a conflicting

variable in governments. The social behaviors encouraged by

religion are ones of basic morality and have strong similarities

to the rules imposed by governments. So even if an individual

changed their religiosity they would still be subject to

enforcement of prescribed social behaviors by the government.

This creates less incentive for an individual to change their

religiosity.

There are also confounding variables in the association of

social and cooperative behaviors and religious attendance. There

is a strong correlation between how people rank the

permissibility of immoral acts and their religious attendance.

The correlation is just as strong when comparing religious

attendance and the value placed on social behaviors, those who

are religious highly value social behavior. (Atkinson and Bourrat

2010). However when looking at this correlation there is one

category of behavior, acts which pertain to sex, that has a much

stronger relationship with religiosity. When looking at the

correlation between social behavior and religiosity but ignoring

sexual behavior, the correlation is so weak it bears little 16

significance (Weeden and Kurzban 2013). Only the social values

related to sexuality and reproduction, such as adultery, have an

effect on religiosity. This not only weakens the social

cooperation approach but strengthens the Reproductive Religiosity

model.

Religion is an effective reproductive strategy due to its

ability to create solidarity in a community. The effectiveness of

guilt and god-fearing creates a relatively obedient group.

Outside of keeping those who are religious monogamous, religion

can reduce levels of promiscuity. Religion has come to serve as a

social limit on promiscuity in Christian cultures, and formalizes

polygamy in most others so that the disadvantages (cuckoldry,

lack of male investment) are reduced to almost equivalent levels.

Religion not only encourages monogamy but discourages all other

strategies (Weeden et al 2008). Allowing for universal adoption

creates growing numbers of the population who join and the

natural enforcement keeps them religious.

Religion is effective in creating a strong community with

similar ideals. Having such a homogenous society reduces the

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risks monogamous individuals face when competing with alternate

strategies. It encourages high parental investment, making it

easier to adhere to that commitment. It also reduces the chances

of males losing reproductive success to cuckoldry and paternity

uncertainty. The strong correlation between the desire for

monogamous strategies and religiosity further cements what

individuals recognize, at least subconsciously: adopting religion

has benefits as a reproductive strategy.

Conclusion:

Two major hypotheses attempt to explain the reasons for

fluctuations in religiosity. One of the leading hypotheses on the

success of religion and individual differences in religion is

social cooperation. The benefits of altruism led to the success

of societies that encouraged prosocial acts and enforced rules

that reduced selfish acts and punished teachers. This is one of

the main roles of government and is a major component of

political ideology, as we see in Locke’s social contract.

Religion is also a culture that fulfills the role of

encouraging altruistic behavior while having a mechanism for

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enforcement. Having a higher power plays an important role

because it allows for constant policing of actions without the

costs or effort associated with government or human enforcement.

The social cooperation theory attributes individual fluctuations

in religious attendance to the desire of an individual to

participate in a social community. An individual who values

social behavior less will be less involved. Alternatively they

may value social behavior but fail to contribute to cooperation,

and therefore punishment or shame pushes them away from the

community.

The alternate explanation for changes in religious

attendance has stronger grounds. The Reproductive Religiosity

model lies on the cornerstone of human reproduction. In essence

there are many sexual strategies available to humans. People

choose their reproductive strategy based on what will make them

the most successful. Life History Theory tells us this may be

because of past life events or environments. Males with visible

attractiveness, reflecting their genes, will be more likely to

adopt polygyny as their ability to mate frequently is a strong

advantage. When there is high mate competition, individuals are 19

more likely to choose a monogamous strategy to ensure their

reproductive success due to losing out to same-sex competitors.

Those who adopt the monogamous strategy are better off if

everybody else is monogamous. Having promiscuous partners or

competitors nearby increase the chances of losing out on

paternity or parental investment. Religion provides such a

culture where everybody is monogamous, so naturally it becomes

advantageous for those who desire a single partner to identify

with the religious group and studies give ground to this

hypothesis.

While the social cooperation model supports the original

success of religion and its adoption there are hidden variables

that seem to weaken its argument as the reason for individual

fluctuations in religious zeal. With strong enforcement from

governments for social behaviors in modern times it is hard for

an individual to escape social behavior by decreasing their

religious attendance. This indicates that the fluctuations have

little to do with the desire to cooperate with others.

Additionally the links between social behavior and religious

20

attendance are weak when recognizing social behaviors pertaining

to sex as a confounding variable (Weeden and Kurzban 2013).

The study and research into these hypotheses has existed for

only a short period of time. Interestingly many of the data

correlating social behavior and religion is weak or conflicting.

There are few arguments published against the new Reproductive

Religiosity model and having such a discussion would strengthen

the topic by further exploring the validity of the idea and

allowing scholars to perform more research addressing any

identified weakness.

A study that looked at an individual over their lifespan

would be very beneficial to the Reproduction Religiosity model.

There are several factors such a study would want to observe. The

fluctuations in religion from childhood to old age would provide

more information on individual changes. It would be interesting

to account for religious attendance and the strength in which one

believed in the doctrine of their religion. Looking at sexual

partners or the justifiability of adultery in society over time

and its association with age would provide useful information on

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the changes in strategies in humans in a life history perspective

but also how it relates to their fluctuations in religiosity.

22

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