---
title: "Cognitive science of religion"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science_of_religion"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:31:05.238737+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Pro-social adaptation ===
According to the prosocial adaptation account of religion, religious beliefs and practices should be understood as having the function of eliciting adaptive prosocial behaviour and avoiding the free rider problem. Within the cognitive science of religion this approach is primarily pursued by Richard Sosis. David Sloan Wilson is another major proponent of this approach and interprets religion as a group-level adaptation, but his work is generally seen as falling outside the cognitive science of religion.

=== Costly signaling ===
Practices that, due to their inherent cost, can be relied upon to provide an honest signal regarding the intentions of the agent. Richard Sosis has suggested that religious practices can be explained as costly signals of the willingness to cooperate. A similar line of argument has been pursued by Lyle Steadman and Craig Palmer. Alternatively, D. Jason Slone has argued that religiosity may be a costly signal used as a mating strategy insofar as religiosity serves as a proxy for "family values".

=== Dual inheritance ===
In the context of cognitive science of religion, dual inheritance theory can be understood as attempting to combine the cognitive byproduct and prosocial adaptation accounts using the theoretical approach developed by Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, among others. The basic view is that while belief in supernatural entities is a cognitive byproduct, cultural traditions have recruited such beliefs to motivate prosocial behaviour. A sophisticated statement of this approach can be found in Scott Atran and Joseph Henrich (2010).

== See also ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==

== External links ==
Religion as Anthropomorphism with Stewart Guthrie.
Religion is Natural and Science is Not with Robert McCauley.
God's Mind, Your Mind, and Theory of Mind with Will Gervais.
Method and Theory in the Cognitive Sciences of Religion with Robert McCauley.
"Practice What You Preach" : CREDs and CRUDs with Jonathan Lanman.