Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire–Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do

by Miller, Alan S.

  8

  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

  THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION AND CONFLICT

  The topics we explore in our last substantive chapter—those concerning religion and group conflict—are the least explored areas of application for evolutionary psychology, probably because these are most remote from the immediate concerns with sex and mating. The connection between sex and religion is not as obvious as the connection between sex and marriage, for example. However, there is a connection. There have been a small number of important studies in the area of religion and group conflict from the evolutionary psychological perspective, and they shed new and often surprising light, providing novel answers to old questions.

  There have been two seemingly contradictory findings in the area of conflict between groups: racism is innate, but race is not. More accurately, ethnocentrism (the tendency to value one’s own group and correspondingly to devalue other groups) is an evolved innate tendency that all humans have. If you have read this far in this book, you should know why by now. We are designed to promote our own reproductive fitness and spread our genes. There is no place for universal love of all people in cold Darwinian logic. So contrary to what social scientists and hippies alike proclaim, we don’t learn to be a racist through parental socialization; we learn not to be one.

  Even though the tendency to favor “ingroup” members at the cost of “outgroup” members is innate (although we can overcome it through socialization and conscious effort), what counts as “ingroup” and “outgroup” is not. In particular, a very ingenious experiment1 has shown that we can erase racial categories that we normally use under the right circumstances. This makes perfect sense, in retrospect, when you remember that our ancestors evolved in a mostly racially homogeneous environment. Encountering people of different races on a daily basis is a very recent phenomenon in human evolutionary history, so there could not be innate categories for different races in our brain, as there are for age and sex.

  We will get to the topic of group conflict shortly. But first we start with religion and where it came from in the first place….

  Q. Where Does Religion Come From?

  It may be tempting to believe that religion[2] is an adaptation (or, in our language, an evolved psychological mechanism) designed by evolution by natural and sexual selection, since there are genetic and biological bases of religion. All human societies practice religion (making it one of the cultural universals);3 whether one is religious or not, especially in adulthood, is largely genetically determined;4 and certain parts of the brain are involved in religious thoughts and experiences.5 However, this explanation of religion as an adaptation runs into one significant problem: What is the adaptive problem that religion is designed to solve? Do religious people live longer or have greater reproductive success?[6] So far, no one has been able to point to an adaptive problem that religion is designed to solve.7

  As a result, many recent evolutionary psychological theories on the origins of religious beliefs share the view that religion is not an adaptation in itself but a byproduct of other adaptations. In other words, these theories contend that religion itself did not evolve to solve an adaptive problem so that religious people can live longer and reproduce more successfully, but instead emerged as a byproduct of adaptations that evolved to solve unrelated adaptive problems.

  These theories,8 in part or in whole, go as follows: When our ancestors faced some ambiguous situation, such as rustling noises nearby at night or a large fruit falling from a tree branch and hitting them on the head, they could attribute them to impersonal, inanimate, unintentional forces (such as wind blowing gently to make the rustling noises among the bushes and leaves, the mature fruit falling by its own weight from the branch by the force of gravity and hitting them on the head purely by coincidence) or to personal, animate, intentional forces (a predator sneaking up on them to attack, an enemy hiding in the tree branches and throwing fruit at their head). The question is, which is it?

  Two Different Ways to Get It Wrong

  Given that the situation is inherently ambiguous and could be caused by either intentional or unintentional forces, our ancestors could have made one of two possible errors. They could have attributed the events to intentional forces when they in fact were caused by unintentional forces (in other words, they could have committed the error of false-positive), or they could have attributed the events to unintentional forces when they in fact were caused by intentional forces (they could have committed the error of false-negative).[9] The consequences of false-positive errors were that our ancestors became unnecessarily paranoid and looked for predators and enemies where there were none. The consequences of false-negative errors were that our ancestors were attacked and killed by the predator or the enemy when they least expected an attack. The consequences of committing false-negative errors are much more seriously detrimental to survival and reproductive success than the consequences of committing false-positive errors, and thus evolution should favor psychological mechanisms that predispose their carriers to over-infer intentions and agency behind potentially harmless phenomena caused by inanimate objects. Evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be paranoid, because it might save your life.10

  Different theorists call this innate human tendency to commit false-positive errors rather than false-negative errors (and as a consequence be a bit paranoid) “animistic bias”11 or “the agency-detector mechanism.”12 These theorists argue that the evolutionary origins of religious beliefs in supernatural forces come from such an innate bias to commit false-positive errors rather than false-negative errors. The human brain, according to them, is biased to perceive intentional forces behind a wide range of natural physical phenomena, because the costs of committing false-negative errors are much greater than the costs of committing false-positive errors. It predisposes us to see the hand of God at work behind natural, physical phenomena whose exact causes are unknown.[13]

  Some readers may recognize this argument as a variant of “Pascal’s wager.” The seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) argued that given that one cannot know for sure if God exists, it is nonetheless rational to believe in God. If one does not believe in God when He indeed exists (false-negative error), one must spend eternity in hell and damnation, whereas if one believes in God when he actually does not exist (false-positive error), one only wastes a minimal amount of time and effort spent on religious ser vices. The cost of committing the false-negative error is much greater than the cost of committing the false-positive error. Hence, one should rationally believe in God.

  In Church and on the Dance Floor

  More interestingly, if you have read “He Said, She Said: Why Do Men and Women Perceive the Same Situation Differently?” in chapter 3, you may see a clear parallel between the evolutionary psychological explanations of the origins of religious beliefs and Haselton and Buss’s error management theory,14 as does Haselton herself.[15] The intriguing suggestion here is that we may believe in God and the supernatural for the same reasons that men over-infer women’s sexual interest in them while women underinfer men’s sexual interest in them. Both religious beliefs and sexual miscommunication are consequences of the human brain designed for efficient error management, to minimize the total costs (rather than the total numbers) of committing false-positive and false-negative errors. We may believe in God for the same reason that women have to keep slapping men to set them straight or that sexual harassment is so rampant.

  Q. Why Are Women More Religious Than Men?

  Apart from the practice of religion itself, there is something else about religion that is culturally universal. Women in virtually every society are more religious than men.

  A worldwide survey asked more than one hundred thousand people from seventy different countries and regions the following two questions: “Do you believe in God” and “In de pen dent of whether you go to church or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person
, or a convinced atheist?” By these measures, with only a couple of minor exceptions,[16] women in all nations and regions are more religious than men.

  The sex differences in religiosity are greater in some countries (Russia) than in others (US). It is present in societies with very high levels of religiosity (Ghana, Poland, Nigeria) and in those with very low levels of religiosity (China, Japan, Estonia). It is present in all six populated continents, regardless of the particular religion involved (Catholicism in Italy and Spain, Protestantism in Germany and Sweden, Russian Orthodox in Russia and Belarus, Islam in Turkey and Azerbaijan, Shintoism in Japan, indigenous religions in Ghana, and even official atheism in China). Women are more religious than men in virtually every society surveyed. Nor is this a contemporary phenomenon. Historical records show that the sex differences in religiosity existed throughout history.17

  Why is this? Why are women more religious than men in virtually all cultures and throughout history? What explains the universal sex difference in religiosity?

  As with all other sex differences, the Standard Social Science Model offers a blanket explanation of “gender socialization.” Social scientists in the Standard Social Science Model tradition contend that women are socialized to be nurturing and submissive, qualities that make religious acceptance and commitment more likely.18 Similarly, they argue that the role of the mother subsumes religiousness, since it involves such activities as teaching the children morality and caring for the physical and spiritual welfare of other family members.19 Some even argue that women are more religious than men because they do not traditionally work outside the home and therefore have more free time to pursue and practice religion.20

  Unfortunately for the Standard Social Science Model, however, it turns out that there is not much empirical support for these explanations for the sex difference in religiosity. Women are more religious than men both in traditional societies, where women receive strict gender socialization, and in modern societies, where women are not subject to such strict gender socialization;21 the experience of child rearing appears unrelated to a woman’s religiosity;22 career women are just as religious as house wives, and both are far more religious than men.23 The preponderance of empirical evidence is therefore contrary to the Standard Social Science Model explanation for the sex difference in religiosity in terms of gender socialization.

  Another Case of Risk Management

  The sex difference in religiosity directly follows from the evolutionary psychological theory of the origins of religious beliefs (see “Where Does Religion Come From?” above) and the sex difference in risk taking (see “Why Are Almost All Violent Criminals Men?” in chapter 6). You’ll recall that the evolutionary origins of religiosity are in risk management; it is less risky to over-infer agency and hence be susceptible to religious beliefs. It is an error-management strategy to minimize the total costs of errors by predisposing the human brain to commit more false-positive errors than false-negative errors when the former has less costly consequences than the latter.24 You’ll recall, too, that women are inherently more risk-averse than men, both because women benefit far less from taking risks (given that there is a limit to how many children women can have and that all women are more or less guaranteed to have some children in their lifetime) 25 and because their offspring suffer if women are risk-seeking.26 If men are more risk-seeking than women, and if religion is an evolutionary means to minimize risk, then it naturally follows that women are more religious than men.

  Consistent with this explanation, studies show that an individual’s risk preference is strongly related to his or her religiosity both across and within the sexes. Not only are women more risk-averse and more religious than men, but more risk-averse men are more religious than more risk-seeking men, and more risk-averse women are more religious than more risk-seeking women.27 Further, consistent with this explanation, the sex difference in religiosity is larger in societies where being nonreligious is considered risky (such as in fundamentalist Christian or Muslim societies) than in societies with greater religious freedom, where individuals can freely choose to be religious or not. The sex difference is also smaller in societies where there is no widespread belief that nonbelievers go to hell, such as Buddhist societies.28

  In the previous section of this chapter (see “Where Does Religion Come From?”), we present the intriguing possibility that humans may believe in God and the supernatural for the same reasons of error management that men over-infer women’s sexual interest in them and women underinfer men’s sexual interest in them. Now, in our discussion in this section of the universal sex difference in religiosity, our suggestion is that women are uniformly more religious than men for the same reasons of risk preference that men are more criminal and violent in every society. Sex differences in risk preference, religiosity, and criminality are all direct consequences of sex differences in reproductive strategy. In all areas of life, it pays for men to take risks because avoiding risks has the disastrous consequence of ending up a total reproductive loser. Religion is just another area where men are more risk-seeking than women.

  Q. Why Are Most Suicide Bombers Muslim?

  According to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions—a comprehensive history of this topical yet puzzling phenomenon—while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Islam.29 Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

  The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines of its text). It may have nothing to do with religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex—or, in this case, the absence of sex.

  What distinguishes Islam from other major world religions (Christianity and Judaism) is that it tolerates polygyny. As we explain in chapter 2 (“Why Are Men and Women So Different?”), by allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don’t get any wives at all. If 25 percent of men have four wives each, then three-quarters of men don’t get any reproductive opportunities and face the distinct possibility of ending their lives as total reproductive losers.

  So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status, who are most likely to be left without reproductive opportunities when older men of high status marry polygynously. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates because they have little to lose and much to gain by doing so compared to men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny increases violent crimes, such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors like economic development, economic in equality, population density, the level of democracy, and world regions.30 So the first unique feature of Islam, which partially contributes to the prevalence of suicide bombings among its followers, is polygyny, which makes young men violent everywhere. This is the first line in the Koran that partially explains it.

  Polygyny Is Not Enough

  However, polygyny by itself, while it increases violence, is not sufficient to cause suicide bombings. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Ca rib bean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and Northern Africa; eighteen of the twenty most polygynous nations in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa and the Ca rib bean.[31] Accordingly, nations in these regions have very high levels of violence, and sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars, but not suicide bombings. So polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombings.

  The other key ingredient is the promise of seventy-two virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. This create
s a strong motive for any young Muslim men who are excluded from reproductive opportunities on earth to get to heaven as martyrs. The prospect of exclusive access to seventy-two virgins in heaven may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces a bleak reality on earth of being complete reproductive losers because of polygyny.

  From the evolutionary psychological perspective, it is the combination of polygyny (and the resulting lack of reproductive opportunities on earth) and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but also other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations, like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.32

  Some Puzzles in the “War on Terror”

  Some of the puzzles of the current situation in Iraq and the Middle East may begin to make sense when you shed evolutionary psychological light on them. For example, the Iraqi insurgents have killed more than six times as many Iraqis as Americans (6,004 Iraqi police and military personnel plus 10,131 civilians vs. 2,466 American troops, as of January 29, 2007).33 From the evolutionary psychological perspective, the Iraqi insurgents may be unconsciously trying to eliminate as many of their male sexual rivals (fellow Iraqi men) as possible, rather than killing American troops (the infidels and occupiers). According to Yale University political scientist Stathis N. Kalyvas, this is precisely what happened in civil wars in two other Muslim nations (Algeria and Oman).34 While it is difficult to remember in light of the daily news reports from the occupied Iraq, insurgency has not always been a necessary response to foreign occupation throughout history. There was absolutely no insurgency against the Allied occupation after World War II either in Germany or Japan.