1 April - Aaron Blaisdell UCLA Psychology
Adaptive Significance of Beliefs about the Afterlife

    According to some evolutionary psychologists, human social and cultural behavior has been shaped by natural selection just as have simple individual behaviors.  If religious belief systems have been shaped to benefit individuals and/or societies, then the microstructure of such belief systems should fit the principles of design by adaptation.  Cross-cultural comparisons may reveal that similar belief traits have evolved in similar social and cultural contexts.  A preliminary survey of 122 world cultures selected from the HRAF (Human Relations Area File) and an extensive survey by Murdock (1967) revealed:  a) that premature or violent death was correlated with beliefs involving vengeance in the afterlife (e.g., vengeful ghosts or vampires); b) stratified but not egalitarian societies emphasized the importance of kin relations in the afterlife; c) clan-based societies incorporated vengeance themes in their beliefs about the afterlife; d) vengeance played an important role in the afterlife in societies that practice animal husbandry, but not in plant-agricultural or hunter-gatherer societies; and e) that in societies of 100 or more individuals, kinship comes to play an important role in the beliefs in the afterlife.