coordination by sacred cues
TRANSCRIPT
Coordination by Sacred Cues
Joseph Bulbulia* and Marcus Frean
Victoria University of Wellington
Abstract
The following presents a cue-based information model for religion. Standard signaling theory
requires senders and receivers. The cue-based model extends signaling theory to situations in
which receivers respond to information that does not track sender identity. We show how
information without senders may reliably motivate exchange and stabilize symbolic and ritual
culture. Sacred priming is interesting because it solves three problems in the naturalistic
study of religious minds and sacred cultures:
1. It explains the effectiveness of sacred culture at securing social exchange for
large groups.
2. It gives a plausible explanation for why implicitly encoded primes often work
better than explicit rules in supporting cooperation.
3. It explains a conspicuous (and otherwise perplexing) low rate of change for
religious culture.
The core motivation for the sacred priming model comes from an appreciation that large-
scale collaboration is better modeled as a stag hunt than as a multi-party prisoner’s dilemma.
Keywords: convention, cues, culture, evolution, religion, morality, piety, priming, sacred,
signaling, stag hunt, Theory of Body, values
*Corresponding author.
**Thanks to the Victoria University Research Fund, FHSS Humanities, and Aarhus
University’s Center for Cognition and Culture for their financial support. Thanks to Nick
Agar, Stu Brock, Tim Irwin, Caitlin Ramsey, and Mike Teitelbaum, for comments.
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Coordination by Sacred Cues
“ If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’”
-Ludwig Wittgenstein: On Certainty §217 “ In reality, then, there are no religions which are false. All are true in their own fashion; all
answer, though in different ways, to the given conditions of human existence.” -Emile Durkheim: Elementary Forms of Religious life “ If natural selection shaped the mind to attend to a variety of sources of information about
the consequences of social behavior, then manipulation of these and similar factors should affect levels of prosociality. It may thus be possible to arrive at a more complete understanding of the factors contributing to human cooperation and altruism by systematically exploring how, mediated by individual differences, decision making is influenced by cues which, for most of human history, have provided information about the social ramifications of various courses of action.”
-Kevin Haley and Dan Fessler (Haley & Fessler, 2005) :254
Religion as strategy
Here we present an information-based model for religious cooperation that brings together
three ideas from somewhat different literatures. The ideas:
IDEA 1.
Games of risk: In many cooperative interactions, defection is not a payoff dominant
strategy. Nevertheless, partners may still fail to cooperate because of uncertainty
about whether others will cooperate. Defection is risk-dominant.
IDEA 2.
Sacred values: Some experimental work, much ethnographic work, and common
experience suggest that we possess non-instrumental utilities over public goods
IDEA 3.
Priming: Experiments consistently show that implicit context1 is sufficient to produce
pro-social attitudes, emotions, and behaviors. The effect has recently been observed
for primes using religious culture. The pervasiveness of implicit priming suggests that
some social behavior can be anticipated from contextual features alone (without
specific senders).
1 By impersonal we mean: effects not caused by or related to our exchange partners.
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Each of these ideas raises a puzzle of its own: why are cooperative primes most effective
when implicit? How are non-instrumental values possible about public goods in large-scale
societies? How do we solve games of risk, which exist even after free-rider problems have
been solved? We think these problems are best considered together. We find a common
solution in an information model based on cooperative prediction. We use this model to
clarify how exchange partners are able to reliably predict cooperative behavior from subtle
features of social and symbolic settings, without interpersonal communication. The model
suggests that sacred primes empower cooperation by supporting both implicit social
cognition [including but not limited to predictions facilitated by Theory of Mind and Theory
of Body circuits (Leslie, 1995) (Frith & Frith, 2006)]. This system emerges early are affected
early in developmental (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2008) and responds in intricate and subtle
ways to contextual features, inanimate and social (Frith & Frith, 2008). We examine recent
work considering the importance of music, prayer, meditation, and coordinated body
movements in evoking context sensitive social commitments.
Our model explains why implicit social cognition is most reliable when isolated from
conscious awareness. Executive decision-making allows for what we call “second-guessing.”
We suggest that encapsulation from executive decision-making assures proper functioning,
by avoiding second-guessing. Implicit religion exhibits powerful and elegant Darwinian
design, sculpted by combination of natural and cultural selection.
At the center of our discussion is the analysis of coordination puzzles, where uncertainty,
rather than cheating, threatens exchange. The second part of the paper presents theoretical
foundations for a cue-based information model capable of solving these coordination
problems. We call this: the sacred priming model. Here we gather empirical support for the
model, and explain why primes work best when they activate sacred values by implicit
processes. We conclude by applying the model to solve what we call the “endurance
problem”. We notice that not only does religion survive but also core features of religious
culture change relatively little. The sacred priming model predicts this conservation.
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BACKDROP: Religion and cooperation
Cooperation eases life. We do better working together than by going the world alone. Often
though, we do better still by unilaterally defecting from cooperation. Sleep late; keep your
taxes; litter as you wish. Where all defect, however, all exchange benefits are lost, those of
cooperation and cheating alike. Lacking a counterbalance, rogues evolve a harder world
(Nowak, 2006).
Figure 1. Prisoners Dilemma (actual payoff to you):
B = benefit C= cost
Them
Cooperate Defect
Cooperate B – C - C You
Defect B 0
A familiar theory of religion claims its advantage to cooperation. Many have argued that the
epistemic irrationality of religion nonetheless brings strategic benefits through cooperation
(Berger, 1990; Durkheim, 1964 [1915]).2 Error is an advantage.
One hypothesis looks to the motivating effects of supernatural sanctions (D. D. P. Johnson &
Kruger, 2004; Roes & Raymond, 2003). On the sanctions model, religion brings strategic
benefits because the gods effectively police second-order defection, thereby assuring
cooperation3. To believe in gods is to frame a world where defection brings harm from
2 In the Bulbulia 2004a version “sanctions” give only one frame adjustment, of many
illusionary. 3 Some definitions:
1. “Cooperation” = benefiting exchange under the threat of defection. 2. “Coordination” = benefiting exchange where no defection threat exists. 3. “Collaboration” = larger category of exchange encompassing cooperation and
coordination. 4. “Religion” = beliefs and practices respecting gods. 5. “Sacred” = non-utilitarian values regarding public goods. 6. Piety = a protective posture to sacred things. 7. “Signals”= information “senders” make available to (or disguise from) “receivers” about
senders
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cosmic avengers. Another model looks to reputational effects (Bering, 2006). Supernatural
observes motivate good behavior. The models have recently come together in a hybrid:
sanctioning cosmic avengers are especially effective at evoking reputational considerations
(D. Johnson & Bering, 2009). Yet another view leaves open the evaluative frame. All that
is required is a motivating disposition paired with a recognition capacity (about which more
in a moment) (Bulbulia, 2004a; Schloss, 2008) All of these views find support from the
observation that it is the perception of the game that proximally motivates behavior
(Gauthier, 1975; Sugden, 1995). Where benefits arise from error, we expect error to
propagate (Foster & Kokko, 2009; Trivers, 1991).
Figure 2. Religiously Framed Prisoners Dilemma (perceived payoffs to you)
Heaven > 0 > Cost > Sin
Them
Cooperate Defect
Cooperate Heaven - C You
Defect Sin 0
Natural observer effects on exchange are well known. They are confirmed by experiment
(Forsythe, Horowitz, Savin, & Sefton, 1994; Gachter & Falk, 2002) and experience. Place
Mother in the room, and son stops his antisocial masturbation.4
With respect to the sanctions model, Johnson has shown that the frequency of gods that
punish rises where cooperation becomes less predictable (D. D. P. Johnson, 2005). Further,
explicitly evoking supernatural concepts suppresses cheating (Bering, McLeod, &
Shackelforth, 2005). In natural settings, religious institutions appear to outlast similar
8. “Cues” = information ambient in an environment that that predictably affects behavioral
response. 9. “Prime” = artifacts, events, and interventions designed to cue. 4 Sosis per. comm.
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secular alternatives (Sosis, 2000), an effect that is well explained by the gains that reliable
cooperation makes possible.
Recent data however complicate this picture. In a series of experiments using implicit
primes, Shariff and Norenzayan find support for prosociality. The authors observe that when
supernatural agent awareness is invoked through word scrambling tests, participants gave
more in economic games5. This result supports the moralizing hypothesis for religion. Yet
in one study the authors find significant increases in giving among atheists (Shariff &
Norenzayan, 2007)6. Further, a follow up study invoking secular justice primes (“court”
“police” “jury” “contract”) found similar strong cooperative effects in both theists and
atheists (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007):806.
Recent literature on implicit priming and cooperation only complicates matters. Cooperation
enhancements hold for person primes known to be fake, and without any sanctioning
authority. (Haley & Fessler, 2005) found that almost twice as much charity was observed in
participants responding to anthropomorphic prompts on a computer screen, compared to non-
visual control conditions. Citing these impressive data, the authors (quoted in the epilogue)
observe we must look to the wider informational environment to understand the evolution of
human cooperation.
Indeed the effect seems to hold outside the UCLA psychology laboratory. (Bateson, Nettle, &
Roberts, 2006) studied the effect in a natural office environment. Using an anonymous
donations box for drink supplies, the authors varied anthropomorphic and non-
anthropomorphic cues in alternating weeks. The effect here was even more pronounced than
in the Haley and Fessler experiment. In weeks with eye images office workers donated nearly
three times as much as in weeks with flower images. The idea that there is a live person
behind the A5 image of eyes shooting them dirty looks over a coffee donation box finds
support neither in culture nor experience, nor does the idea that a face image on a computer
5 Dictator games in which an amount (usually ranging from nothing to all) of a fixed award is
divided as a randomly selected “dictator” sees fit. 6 The authors used word-scrambling devices to generate an implicit awareness of god
concepts.
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screen is spreading gossip. The idea that such cues will stabilize cooperation where they can
be exploited for defector advantage cries out for explanation.
The work on implicit moralizing primes builds on a vast literature of implicit priming and
social affect. In a comprehensive review (Decoster & Claypool, 2004) makes a most
important and startling observation: priming effects for person evaluation (self/other) are
strongest when action primes were subliminal, rather than visibly and clearly invoked. The
question is not merely why should priming work but why it should work better than explicit
presentation?
To take an example, Baldwin et. al. found differences in self-evaluation in graduate students
implicitly exposed to the frowning expression of the (then) department chair Robert Zajonc.7
Though the angry authority stimulus lasted only lasting 2ms (processed outside awareness) it
nevertheless consistently evoked lower subjective evaluations of the quality, originality, and
importance of the students’ own work. A follow up study found a similar effect in self-
evaluations in Catholics implicitly primed with the frowning image of Pope John Paul II. The
“disapproving Pope” stimulus lowered overall self evaluations in Catholics but not others,
with the effect more evident in participants reporting active religious practice (p.447). No
such effect was found for an unknown authority prime. The experiment suggests prior
experience (and current concern) matters to at least some aspects of social evaluation.
The data appear more interesting when interpersonal attribution and implicit priming is
considered at a larger scale. Recent work building on intergroup identity theory (Mackie,
Devos, & Smith, 2000) shows that implicit primes exploiting a variety of information
processes, including music, joint-action, and mimicking reveal powerful, largely unconscious
processes at work. It has long been known that emotions propagate through social networks.
Hatfield writes: ‘As people non-consciously and automatically mimic their companions
fleeting expressions of emotion they often come to feel pale reflections of their partners
feelings. By attending to this stream of moment-to-moment reactions, people can and do “feel
themselves into” the emotional landscapes inhabited by their partners’ (Hatfield, Cacioppo, &
Rapson, 1993): 96. The production of emotion elaborates common feeling through a
7 “Bob graciously agreed to serve as a disapproving stimulus, but suggested that given his reputation among the students as a patriarch of sorts that it might be advisable to ask someone else to provide the approving expression.” (p. 437)
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feedback mechanism that amplifies the signal in groups, one that appears unconsciously
activated (Wild, Erb, & Bartels, 2001; Wild, Erb, Eyb, Bartels, & Grodd, 2003). More
recent longitudinal work suggests that some moods are retained over extended periods of
time in social networks, suggesting that more structured, externally mediated systems may be
at play (Fowler & Christakis, 2008). A wealth of data discussing these effects has recently
appeared in social cognitive neuroscience. The data present a complex picture of social
cognition in which numerous motor processing, perspective taking, evaluative and affective
circuits interact with explicit evaluative machinery to finely orchestrate social prediction and
control [for overviews see: (Frith & Frith, 2008; Rilling, Dagenais, Goldsmith, Glenn, &
Pagnoni, 2008)]. Below we shall examine other studies evoking music and coordinated
bodily movements to enhance cooperation.
Considered from an evolutionary perspective, these data paint a mysterious picture about
human emotion, evaluation, and cooperation in large-scale society. Why should music,
repetitive behaviors, and implicit cues activate pro-social feeling? Why do cheaters not resist
the urge to cooperate when placed in such contexts? How could associative learning favor
pro-sociality, opting to retain the instruction of celibate priests and sleepy monks?8
Norenzayan and Shariff notice the data do not uniquely vindicate any particular functional
theory - “There is no reason why only one …mechanism need be responsible for the effect
of God concepts on prosocial behavior. Religious sentiments have been culled and honed
through hundreds of generations and may rely on multiple psychological mechanisms, a
possibility we leave open for ... future research” (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007) :808.
Nevertheless they pick their favorite horse: ‘[h]owever, reputation management can go a long
way in explaining the evolutionary stability of cooperative behavior between strangers, to the
extent that selfish individuals are detected and subsequently excluded from further
cooperative ventures” (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007):807.9
9 Further, in another paper Norenzayan and Sheriff conjecture:
Religion’s association with prosociality is most evident when the situation calls for maintaining a favorable social reputation within the in-group. When thoughts of morally concerned deities are cognitively salient, an objectively anonymous situation becomes nonanonymous and, therefore, reputationally relevant, or alternatively, such thoughts
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We think ‘long way’ is better replaced by ‘short way’ and that the multi-causal model is
preferable. The posited reputational effect does not explain why automated priming works.
Mother in the room would seem to be more effective at policing son than mother’s photo, or
a crossword puzzle. More importantly, the conjecture does not explain how religious belief
persists.10 For belief appears explicit. Yet if explicit belief is not important, why do specific
religious beliefs and rites endure relatively unchanged over millennia?11
Finally we suggest that if implicit reputational considerations are at play they require context
dependant and relational agency attributions. That A+ on the calculus exam gets you nowhere
on the catwalk, and will not excuse your car. [For a discussion of symbolic capital and
signaling theory see:(Bliege Bird & Smith, 2005)]. The gods are not always punishing
fathers, nor need they be to affect social emotions. The data suggest that numerous emotions
drive religious cooperation, including fear but also loyalty, trust, honor, and love.
The signaling literature on religious cooperation looks like a promising Delphi. The idea:
where costly religious behavior correlates with enhanced trust the behavior ensures
cooperation. Religion causes assortment where it both reliably solves cooperation problems
and is hard-to-fake [see:(Irons, 1996c, 2001; Mahoney, 2008; Soler, 2008; Sosis, 2000; Sosis
& Alcorta, 2003)].
A plausible hypothesis predicts commitment to moralizing behavior as the message
authenticated through religious signaling. The idea: god commitment predicts cooperative
behavior wherever it motivates it. Cooperators will wish to signal commitment reliably to
activate pro-social tendencies because of a priori mental association. This could occur when such thoughts are induced experimentally or in naturalistic religious situations, such as when people attend religious services or engage in ritual performance. This is explains why the religious situation is more important that the religious disposition in predicting of pro-social behavior.”(Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008) :62.
10 Bering’s model assumes that defectors are punished downed the track, through the gossip
circuit. This assumes that cooperation is already functioning properly, for punishment and truthful slandering is a kind of cooperation, requiring sacrifice and trust.
11 We do not suggest that all religion remains unchanged. We rather look to uncontroversial
aspects: Shiva, baptism with water, karma, the Koran, the Paul’s letters to the Galatians, the Noble path, and suggest a relatively slow rate of change for certain features.
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secure exchange. Why? Policing religious traits are evolvable only where religious
commitments cause assortment. The religiously cooperative must find each other, amid
pretenders. Otherwise, rogues remain empowered to cheat piety (Schloss, 2008)12. Further
work applies the model to the signaling of elites (Henrich, 2007). The scalar version:
authorities able to reliably signal virtue ensure a commitment to their followers, and idea that
echoes Bellah’s work on civil religion (Bellah, 1967). Further, in one of the original signaling
papers on religion Cronk (1994) held that elites manipulate the masses with signals for
personal gain. We shall return at end to this idea that elites use religion to exert control,
noting that the elite signaling model can only be a small part (at best) of a vastly more
complicated picture.
Figure 3. The sender-receiver model for religious signaling
Commitment signaling is abundant in nature (Johnstone, 1998; Zahavi & Zahavi, 1997)
[summarized in (Covas, McGregor, & Doutrelant, 2007)]. Further, the configuration renders
communication resistant to deception -- a peacock’s tail, the stotting springbok, the Ferrari
confirm “vigor” and “wealth” better than words. More recent models apply signaling theory
to a range of culture practices, noting that signals need not reduce the mean fitness of
individuals or groups to produce cooperative effects (Bliege Bird & Smith, 2005; Bulbulia,
2008c).
We think this signaling idea is interesting because it explains the costs of religion as
adaptations for signaling, that is, as cooperation’s efficiency (Bulbulia, 2004a).
12 The need for assortment is an instance of a more general requirement: the average harm of
error must exceed its average benefits, a non-trivial matter. If we suppose that religion is epistemically irrational, then religion threatens great harm. Highly motivation false beliefs are not only dangerous in their own right (“I am immortal!”) but also corrupt any inference in which they occur (“Let’s jump of this building!”)(Bulbulia, 2008c; Cosmides & Tooby, 2000; Pyysiäinen, 2003).
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Yet while we remain fans of signaling, we also notice that significant problems remain over
the scope of its application. The three most significant are:
1. Scale: It is unclear how to apply the signaling model to large-scale social settings. As
numbers grow, all cannot scrutinize the piety of each. Distribution of a signal by
intermediaries is necessary. These take us from the sender-receiver paradigm, where each
production gives its measure.
2. Wrong game: Cooperative intent alone does not secure exchange. Partners need
mutual assurance over coordination points. For much exchange, risk rather than
defection, threatens that assurance. We need to know more than “our partners are good”
to predict their behavior. We need to know what they will do.
3. Implicit context: Cooperative effects are often not invoked directly by partners.
Partners do not take themselves to be cooperating with a statue, word puzzle, or A5 sheet
of paper!
We seek to extend (not replace) the signaling model with an information model. We do so
by following Durkheim’s idea that religion encodes sacred values through emotions (what he
called “effervescence”). We also suggest that the reputation sanctions model for cooperation
favored by Bering and Johnson gives a limited picture. We shall see that a far more
complicated story about religious pro-social motivation is emerging.13 Indeed, these are
exciting times in the naturalistic study of religion!
We begin with coordination problems. Rogues do not threaten exchange here. The problem
lies elsewhere, and it is much harder to combat.
IDEA 1: Coordination and Risk
Consider some interactions or “games.” Harry wants to meet Sally, who also wants a
meeting. The game has four “equilibria” – combinations of strategies that are best replies to
another’s choice (more generally: every other player’s choice).
13
Importantly, this is a naturalistic model, and we have no religious or anti-religious agenda.
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Figure 4: Where Harry meets Sally
Sally
Revive Starbucks Parade Motel
Revive Win 0 0 0
Starbucks 0 Win 0 0
Parade 0 0 Win 0 Harry
Motel 0 0 0 Win
Harry and Sally each "win" only if their choices converge. Their interests overlap perfectly.
There is no incentive to defect from exchange. Lacking mutual assurance over their exchange
point, however, they win only 25% of the time.14 Religion does them no good. Even a god-
fearing couple needs to know where god wants them to have coffee.
Consider another two-player game: “HI-LO.” Each wins lots if both choose "HI" and each
wins little if both choose "LO." Otherwise there are no payouts.
Figure 5. HI-LO
Them
HI LO
HI LOTS 0 You
LO 0 little
There are two equilibria here: HI to HI, and LO to LO. Both HI and LO are best replies to
themselves.
Surely we would play HI together -- you and me! We would pity the LO-playing fool. How
are we able to choose HI? Because we expect this of our partner. Why? The expectation is
common knowledge. That is, we are aware that the expectation is widely known. We might
have played differently among Martians famous for hating money ("it piles up so”) or with a
14 Assuming random choices.
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rival who benefits from spite. (Consider how you might have played the game with Lex
Luthor, your enemy.) [For experiments and discussion see: (Bacharach, 2006): 56-64].
This common knowledge requires very little mental calculus. Such is not always true. Our
ability to theorize each other’s minds frequently threatens optimal strategic exchange, as
exhibited in the “stag hunt game”.
The Stag Hunt
The stag hunt is a story described in the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The story shows
how informed, cooperative players may nevertheless fail to coordinate, owing to the risk of
coordination failure.
Rousseau writes:
If it was a matter of hunting a deer, everyone well realized that he must remain
faithful to his post; but if a hare happened to pass within reach of one of them, we
cannot doubt that he would have gone off in pursuit of it without scruple (Rousseau,
1984 [1754])[sec. III] cited in (Skyrms, 2004):1)
Figure 6. Stag hunt (payoffs to you)
Them
Stag Hare
Stag 3 0 You
Hare 1 1
All like tasty and filling stags. Even rogues will agree, preferring to join the hunt if others
join. Unlike in a prisoner’s dilemma, here one cannot reap the benefits of exploiting
cooperative suckers. Failing to cooperate is not the defection of a prisoner’s dilemma.
However, it would be imprudent to cooperate without assurance others will too. A hunter
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must predict stag hunting to opt for it. The Hare is bitter; but it beats nothing. Assurance
requires confidence over what will happen. How can we predict the behavior of many?
Notice that second-order thinking or “mentalizing” about each other’s strategies thwarts
confidence in a stag hunt.15 In a stag hunt, all must anticipate stag hunting by common
expectation.
Importantly, only a little uncertainty can spoil a common expectation for stag hunting.
Suppose that Hamhunger judges that stag hunting is sensible. But really Hamhunger needs to
predict stag hunting, not evaluate it. For this, he needs to be certain that all (or many) expect
stag hunting, by common expectation. Mr. H’s question: “is the expectation common?”. If
risk-aversion is possible, then second-guessing introduces uncertainty over that expectation.
This second-guessing demotivates a Stag Hunt 16.
Hume’s parable captures the problem well:
Two neighbors may agree to drain a meadow, which they possess in common;
because tis easy for them to know each others mind, and each may perceive that the
immediate consequence of failing in his part is the abandoning of the whole project.
But 'tis difficult, and indeed impossible, that a thousand persons should agree in any
such action [(Hume 1739))Bk III, Pt. II, Sec. II] cited in (Skyrms, 2004):2).
Hume’s point: even if we know each other’s preferences, we cannot convert this knowledge
into a common expectation. We can anticipate coordination failure because it is common
knowledge that we cannot predict each other’s behavior. We cannot prefer our way out of
risk aversion in large stag hunts.
Generalizing: If some uncertainty is suspected then conditional action to uncertainty may be
predicted. We can see the calculative burdens of social decision making in economic games
that are organized to make the problems difficult (McCabe, Houser, Ryan, Smith, & Trouard,
15 The representational processes are both implicit and explicit (Frith & Frith, 2008). 16 Further: risk aversion is amplified by loss aversion, which is common (Tversky &
Kahneman, 1981).
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2001). For an overview see: (Krueger, McCabe, Moll, & Kriegeskorte, 2007). Behavioral
data suggests that uncertainty prompts risk-dominant play (Schurger & Sher, 2008)17.
Some economists and anthropologists have come to appreciate that many exchange problems
assume the character of a stag hunt (Bicchieri, 1993, 2006; Skyrms, 2004; Sugden, 2003). For
example, comparing the practice of whale hunting to fishing in the village of Lamalera
Indonesia, Alvard and Nolin observe that the exchange pattern is poorly described as a
prisoner’s dilemma. For though whale hunting requires complex coordinated action and trust,
opting out for fishing brings lower returns. One suggestion is that cultural norms sustain the
practice of whale hunting, as an intricate form of “pre-game communication”(Alvard &
Nolin, 2002). This is on the right track. However as (Bicchieri, 2006; Young, 1993) and
(Skyrms, 2004) observe, conventions are fragile, and easily fragment, as partners update their
decisions based on coordination’s failure [see also (Harsanyi & Selton, 1988)].
Society manages to collaborate stably, at massive scales. How could it be?
Solutions
Let us consider the limitations of some recent solutions to coordination puzzles. (Those
interested in the sacred priming model should skip ahead).
Salience
Schelling suggests the answer lies in "focal points" (Schelling, 1960).
Harry and Sally can find each other by picking the standout equilibrium. Suppose one cafe is
red, but the rest of the world is black and white (as the red ball in Schindler’s List).
17 Again, we need not theorize of others explicitly, as scientists. Our inferences to other’s minds are usually tacit, automated, and fast, see: (Rilling, Sanfey, Aronson, & Nystrom, 2004; Zahn, et al., 2008).
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Figure 7. Assurance by salience
Sally
Revive Starbucks Parade Motel
Revive Win 0 0 0
Starbucks 0 Win 0 0
Parade 0 0 Win 0 Harry
Motel 0 0 0 Win
Where players follow the simple rule: "pick the salient option" a unique spot of interaction
appears. They see and infer: “focal” [see (Bacharach, 2006) ch. 1].
Magic? Indeed. The answer assumes its solution, as Lewis observed. We need to account for
what Lewis calls: “higher order expectations” (Lewis, 1969): 28.
Notice, there are innumerable candidates for “focal” -- absolute location in space or time,
relative orientation, physical properties (“the second shortest”), specific causal histories. The
partners might find red salient, but they might also prefer the cafe closest to the centre of
town, or the cafe the couple has frequented most often in the past, or the one where they have
last seen each other, or the largest, or most intimate, or the one where Sally faked her orgasm
loudly -- "For surely, Sally prefers that one.” Why should color matter most?
Suppose it does, but that Harry and Sally are in a stag hunt. Both the focal point and loss
aversion can be represented. What to do? There is uncertainty. Perceiving salience does
not predict risky exchange. Stags have the salience of HI. A common knowledge of the
preference, we have seen, does not predict exchange at the preferred equilibrium. More is
required.
For salience to predict risky collaboration, the following conditions must be satisfied:
S1. perception of rule: a focal agent perceives a salient equilibrium.
S2. motivation to follow rule: a focal agent is willing to act at this equilibrium, if most
others do too.
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S3. assurance of other minds: a focal agent believes that conditions 1 & 2 hold for all (or
most) other players.
S4. assurance of common expectation: a focal agent believes that condition S3 is satisfied
for all (or most) player [For comparable criteria see: (Lewis 1969) p.42 and (Bicchieri
2006:11).
With these conditions in mind (focusing to S4), consider how salience may be obtained.
Decree
A fairy tale in which language comes to the rescue:
Once upon a time Sally said:
“Let’s go to Revive."
Harry replied: "Let’s."
They did.
Language often manufactures salience, with telepathic accuracy. It appears purpose-built for
assurance. Can it assure a stag hunt?
Experimental findings show that “cheap talk” facilitates solutions to coordination dilemmas
with risk (Blume & Ortmann, 2007). However the best evidence of the power of language
comes from ordinary experience. Think of your day and how much of it was arranged by fiat.
(“Bring home three eggs, a green pepper, lite sour cream, a 75 watt light bulb…”) Yet
while language works, it cannot give a general solution to collaboration under risk. It cannot
effectively manage the inference from uncertainty to safety, by common expectation.
For language to cause risky collaboration, the following preconditions would need to be met:
D1. event: utterance produced and perceived.
D2. interpretation: a focal player is confident which equilibrium this utterance describes.
D3. motivation to follow rule: a focal agent is willing to act at this equilibrium, if most
others do too.
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D4. assurance of other minds: a focal agent believes that conditions 1-3 hold for all (or
most) other players.
D5. assurance of common expectation: a focal agent believes that condition D4 is satisfied
for all (or most) players.
Clearly, much can go wrong at D1, D2, (and so D4 and D5). We cannot always speak
efficiently before acting -- think of the footpath and freeway. Even then, problems over
interpretation arise in the simplest cases. When Harry said: `No presents for me this
Christmas,’ did he mean it? Can Harry risk that Sally will not lose resolve, making him look
cheap?
Suppose we are in Hume’s meadow, you and I. We hear it said: “Go thee to the meadow at
daybreak!” What will we do? Might not something go wrong? Might not someone think
something will go wrong, or think that someone might think that something will go wrong?
Surely! The possibility alone empowers the safe but meager choice. Language breaks wind
here, without assurance.
WE-Frames
(Bacharach, 2006) and (Sugden, 2003) solutions to large-scale coordination in groupthink. A
player who ranks preferences by collective outcomes assigns different risks. Where hunters
decide by asking "what is best for us?" coordination is assured. Framed that way, risks loads
decisions to hare hunting.
Figure 8. WE-framed stag hunt (as for HI-LO)
Us
Stag Hare
Stag Best Worst Us
Hare Worst Moderate
The proposal finds support from social psychology. The experimental literature is
unequivocal: we easily sink our individuality in collective identities, and act on these
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illusions. We respond to skin color, gender, age, affiliation, and accent. Even distinctions
made in an openly arbitrary way prompt group identity. The effects are chilling. Suggest a
difference, empower one side, and atrocity follows (Zimbardo, 1973).
The ease with which we identify with a group, however, exposes a weakness in the WE-
frame proposal. Groupishness may lead to the formation of mobs. However it does not ensure
a unique mob. Nor does it ensure stability.
First, there are no uniquely salient WE-frames. "We" are families, ecological units, informal
friendships, military castes, teachers, tribes, persons of ridiculous good looks, women,
redheads, redheaded women, and so forth, potentially. Further the number of possible WE-
frames increases exponentially with the size of an exchange community. Each new immigrant
becomes a new “we” with every other resident, as well as with every other potential
grouping, potentially (Dunbar, 1998 a.; Sterelny, 2007). Humans have been cooperative since
before we were human. Throughout human history the question arises: just who are "WE”
anyway?
Lore
Perhaps conventions sufficiently assure risky collaboration. Consider right-sided driving in
continental Europe. The rule became established in France after the revolution, where left-
hand driving became associated with the old order. It then spread gradually through Spain in
the nineteenth century, and in the early twentieth century became adopted by the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. Sweden was the last to change all at once, in 1967. Expectations
gradually settled (Young, 1998). Here, if anywhere, we find coordination with risk. Safer to
stay home than drive among Turks. Though once a regularity establishes, its pursuit is self-
ratifying among those prone expect and act on regularities. The costs of the disposition:
bogus etiquette -- double cheek kissing, cravats, and the placement of forks (Boyd, 2006).
The benefits: easy prediction through common expectation.
Conventions provide salience (S4) where the following conditions are satisfied:
L1. perception of a norm: a focal agent perceives a norm to apply to an exchange.
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L2. motivation to follow a norm: a focal agent is willing to act at this equilibrium, if most
others do too.
L3. assurance of other minds: a focal agent believes that conditions 1-2 hold for all (or
most) other players.
L4. assurance of common expectation: a focal agent believes that condition L3 is satisfied
all (or most) players.
We have diverse examples of effective norms, ranging from etiquette to criminal law. We use
crosswalks, celebrate New Year's, wear skirts by gender, give directions to (instead of attack)
strangers, accept legal tender, shake hands, use silver wear, wipe without soap and water, and
so forth. Conventions are rail-work.
This observation, though, is not an explanation. What assures our conventions? The world
is “informationally opaque” (Sterelny, 2003). Errors not only damage cooperation, a record
of error inflates risk assignments. Theory of Mind (ToM) not only enables us to perceive
uncertainty in others but also to extrapolate to their strategic decisions, that is, to think about
how our common recognition of uncertainty will affect their behavior. It also enables us to
perceive loss aversion, by common knowledge. The effect: as errors accumulate, old
conventions get tipped like cows.
The experimental literature agrees. In economic games even isolated norm-violations wreck
efficient but risky conventions. We appear only conditionally cooperative (Camerer, 2003).
Without a countervailing mechanism, evidence of failure eventually sinks cooperation (Fehr
& Fischbacher, 2003).
The experiments apply to real world settings, too. In a series of experiments Caildini showed
that we are much more likely to litter in a dirty environment, or when we see others littering,
than we are in a pristine environment (Caildini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1990). Keizer and
colleagues examine the “Caildini effect” in settings, considering whether the observation of
a specific norm or legal violation would cause infringement of unrelated norm or law
violations. The authors suggest that this effect is poorly captured by a conformist bias
heuristic, noting that the effect is isolated to joint action, and relevant to unspecified
behavioral domains (other norms, not violated). Instead the authors postulate a "goal driven
mechanism" noting that 'in a given situation, the goal to act appropriately is weakened when
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people observe that others seemingly did (or do) not pursue the goal to act appropriately. In
turn, the weakening of this goal strengthens conflicting hedonic and gain goals"(Keizer,
Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008):1682. In one study the authors observed that after observing
graffiti near a sign prohibiting graffiti, 69% of participants littered when compared to 33% in
the non-graffiti control, and effect that generalized to the breaking of laws. In a study where
bicycles were clearly parked near a “no bicycle parking” sign, 82% of participants trespassed
(stepping through a fence to take a shorter route) when compared to 27% in the non-violating
control. A most striking effect was found in a study assessing outright stealing. Where an
envelop was placed dangling from a mailbox with a five euro note attached, a full 27% of
participants stole the money if the mailbox was painted in graffiti and the area around it was
littered. This compares with an only 13% stealing rate in the pristine alternative. (Note to
self: clean office before student consultation.) The authors state: "our conclusion is that, as
a certain norm violating behavior becomes more common, it will negatively influence
conformity to other norms and rules." (Keizer, et al., 2008):1684.
Formal modeling also predicts the spreading of disorder: over time risk dominant
equilibriums average the highest yield, and so are ratified under selection(Harsanyi & Selton,
1988; Young, 1993). As conditions degrade, no one benefits from unilateral cooperation.
That is to say, once tipping begins, inertia unravels a convention(Bicchieri, 2008; Van
Huyck, Battalio, & Beil, 1990).
Conventions do work, and they perdure. But they do not sufficiently explain the conditions
for their existence [See: (Skyrms 2004; Bicchieri 2008) for extended discussions]. The
observant reader will have noticed that context matters. Next we seek to uncover some of the
mechanisms by which symbolic and ritual culture alters an informational environment to
elicit cooperative behavior. The effect does not rely on signaling. Nor does it rely on
perceived sanctions or the consideration of enhanced reputations.
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The Sacred Priming Model
The standard signaling model focuses to information conveyed from senders to receivers.
Figure 9. Sender-receiver signaling model
A sender manipulates the world. The manipulation carries information, which co-varies with
sender properties (B. Bergstrom, Moehlmann, & Boyer, 2006; C. T. Bergstrom & Lachmann,
2004). A simple case: Mr. Sender conveys reliable information to Mrs. Receiver. The
information is sufficient for a collaboration both want, and so they do.
In the classic model, signals track sender identities. The flower that John offers gives
assurance of his interest. It does not track Bob’s romantic intent -- not straightforwardly.
May not the punishment theory of religion combine with signaling to assure a stag hunt? May
not those who believe in punishing gods shed and evaluate signals that make risky
collaboration predictable, leading religious stag hunters to assort?
This seems doubtful. Recall that the problem in a stag hunt is not one of utility. The bitter,
measly hare is its own punishment. All prefer the stag, rogues and saints alike. The benefits
of collaboration are a given, and yet we have seen that an awareness of a commonly held
motivation is insufficient to predict a common expectation that norm compliance will follow.
Some have attempted to apply standard signaling models to large-scale coordination (Alvard
& Nolin, 2002; Cronk, 2005; Henrich, 2007). This solution, however, requires an indirect
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transference of information through a network. In a large network, each cannot inspect the
signals of every. Indirection amplifies uncertainty. Uncertainty itself is common knowledge.
Recall Hume’s point: “tis difficult, and indeed impossible, that a thousand persons should
agree in any such action.” Indeed! The solution religious signaling affords recedes.
Hope, however, abides. Notice that:
1. Stag hunts are threatened by uncertainty over gains and certainty over losses.
2. Many large cooperative interactions are poorly modeled as scalar Prisoner’s
Dilemmas.
3. Information that predicts risky exchange need not track individual identities.
4. Any artifact or event that causes collaborative motivations by common awareness can
be configured to predict risky collaboration, by common expectation.
Religious Triggers
Call a “cue” any information (internal/external) whose variance causes behavioral
modification.18 The sun’s orbit cues wakefulness and sleep, migration, hormone production,
the color of leaves. The sun has no interest in collaboration. It causes these effects without
intention. The design lies in the agents it modifies.
Other cues are artifacts. They are organized for strategic effect. Call these contrived
adjusters: “primes.” Sender-receiver signals are primes. However many cues do not fit the
sender-receiver model. For example intracellular signals cue by design. A clock ticks
within. There is no tracking of identity -- a clock maker. Others primes are personal but
external. We alter our responses with artifacts. Sartre jots down a note to remember, sets his
watch fast, arranges his kitchen bench. The props are not organized to signal self-
commitment among past and future Sartres
Other primes are external, other-directed, and generic. A bomb ignited in a crowd may be
used for strategic purposes. The masses disperse; markets fall, and the villain ring his hands
with delight. These effects need not depend on any reliable identification of the information-
18 Variance rules out the earth’s gravity as a cue, etc.
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maker. Indeed obscuring bomber identities may be desirably, to cause greater confusion and
terror.
The irrelevance of authorship is more clearly true of road signs; we follow these without
pausing to consider covariance with builder virtues. Further: selfish drivers in oncoming
traffic? No matter. We care only that they keep to the rules.
Examples of generic explicit priming abound. The hotel owner flips a switch: “no vacancy.”
A sign reads: “Cancer ward: no smoking.” These devices cue responses, predictably. We
make a world of instruction for ourselves, largely impersonally. We do so purely to
coordinate.
In the simplest case: a cue reliably coordinates if (and only if) it reliably causes an exchange
pattern.
Figure 10.
Our topic is coordination under risk. Might some cues cause risky collaboration without
design? Might the sun cause stag hunting, unintentionally?
We have seen that emotional contagions fuel a cue-driven coordination of sorts (Hatfield,
Cacioppo et al. 1993; Fowler and Christakis 2008). The cognitive systems that support
emotional contagions reflect design (surely) but the props themselves need not. We feel that
way because we sense others feel that way. (Thagard, 2005) suggest that emotional contagion
is important to the transmission of religion, but does not discuss social coordination. He was
right to avoid the topic, for it is doubtful that emotional contagion alone can maintain risky
exchange; for it cannot support the expectation for such exchange to continue. It cannot
silence the worry. Fear, mistrust, and risk-aversion, too, may spread. Knowing this, and
nothing else, prudence councils restraint. More is needed for stag slaying.
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We have seen that in humans, ToM introduces coordination-wrecking havoc where
coordination brings risk. Second-order mentalizing enables the representation of uncertainty.
Uncertainty predicts loss-averse equilibriums, by common expectation. Bad-paying safety
forms a large, stable equilibrium in stag hunts, wherever partners lack confidence in
forecasting exchange. What interventions will halt a spade of thought from turning?
Certain interventions may cause cooperation by disabling loss aversion, inferential reasoning,
or Theory of Mind.19 These however are undesirable. For we have seen that calculation is
correlated with uncertainty. This correlation predicts risk-averse strategies. Needed, rather,
is an intervention that reliably simulates motivations and predictions over risky collaboration.
Notice: an intervention that motivates Sarah without regard for risk will motivate risky
coordination wherever Sarah is able to infer this motivation in exchange partners exposed to
similar interventions. In the simplest case:
A prime supports coordination by common expectation wherever its motivational effects
suppress risk-aversion over risky exchange, by common expectation.20
Figure 11.
19 The neurotransmitter oxytocin appears to target social risk without causing a global risk-taking preference. This effect makes oxytocin-generating mechanisms excellent candidates for coordination enhancing technology. It is unclear whether the effect works by way of risk assessment, or by altering our emotional commitment (Baumgartner, Heinrichs, & Vonlanthen, 2008). 20 Clearly the behaviors need not be identical. Keep left does not mean keep north; it means “do the opposite.” We discuss the connection of primes to specific focal points at the end.
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Where such motivations can be elicited, knowing each other’s hearts is like knowing wet
from rain. Where could we find such motivations?
IDEA TWO: Sacred Values
Some of our values are non-instrumental. We cherish some things as ends in themselves.
Harm to these things causes outrage and disgust. Shirley refuses to allow the Russian tourists
to torture her kittens, whatever the offer.
Shirley’s non-instrumental value is private -- it applies to her pets. Other non-instrumental
values apply to public matters. We cherish the law that no pet may be tortured in this land.
More common, we cherish this land as our land. Sometimes we cherish each other, as
comrades to the grave.
Call these shared non-instrumental values over public matters: “sacred values.” These require
different treatment to the standard instrumental preferences of microeconomic theory. Sacred
values are not well ordered, transitive, or fungible. Further sacred valuing is often
impassioned and non-calculating, and commonly known to be so. Such values are
experienced as moral absolutes. A sacred value stops risk aversion like granite reasoning, like
granite turns a spade. That it does so is obvious. So the model claims. But what is our
evidence?
Recently, (Ginges, Atran, Medin, & Shikaki, 2007) have assessed the role sacred values play
in heated political disputes. They have shown that on the West Bank, moral absolutists react
with outrage and disgust to political proposals offering cash for sacredly valued land. Such
absolutists also exhibit a much higher tolerance for violence after such offers are made. Atran
et al. distinguish the “rational actors” of economic theory from the “devoted actors” that
populate these hotbeds (Atran, Axelrod, & Davis, 2007). The authors observe that we know
little of how sacred values operate psychologically and socially. We do know however that
standard economic models poorly predict the behavior of devoted actors. For example, while
devoted actors frame situations in absolute terms, the framing does not produce strategic
inflexibility. Moral absolutes are not simply ultimate preferences. While cash offers fuel the
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fires of conflict, symbolic transactions of sacred values -- acknowledgements of absolute
rights, expressions of regret and of respect for the dignity of others -- when offered sincerely,
reduce anger and a tolerance for violence, facilitating negotiation [see also: (Atran, 2002;
Fiske & Tetlock, 1997; Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000)].
The sacred priming model hypothesizes that sacred values motivate coordination under risk
specifically because their pursuit mitigates risk aversion about coordination. The priming
model further hypothesizes that wherever cues reliably cause sacred values in devoted actors,
risky coordination equilibriums become predictable, by common expectation21.
Call “piety” the motivation that comes with the awareness that sacred values are known22 to
be shared. In large groups, Hamhunger’s piety enables her to anticipate risky exchange
partners, where primes motivate piety impersonally. Pious teams may accurately predict stag
hunting23.
Figure 12. Sacred primes
Notice again that to secure risky collaboration, piety should not be unbounded. It should not
globally lobotomize risk-aversion or theory of mind. It should rather exploit accurate
judgment to forecast and assure collective gains. Piety is neither insensible nor imprudent.
Wherever a prime is contrived to cause sacred motivations, by common awareness, it is both
21 The linking of sacred values to specific policies requires separate treatment. Here we assume such connection is possible as an inference to the best explanation for evocative sacred cues in strategic settings (see the Presidential inauguration speech, below). Notice, however, that while sacred values support assurance, they are not sufficient to ensure stag hunting. For example, partners need to know to hunt stags. 22 Known implicitly or explicitly.
23 Here we see how piety gives a non-instrumental foundation to Bacharach’s “WE” teams.
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epistemically and strategically rational to act on it24. There need be no illusions or failures to
update here. Only non-instrumental concerns, and a widespread awareness that we share
them.
Why might implicitly encoded primes perform this task well?
IDEA THREE: Implicitly encoded Information
Rituals, both dramatic and mundane, dominate life. They are salient, not subtle. Further,
religious information appears especially memorable. It too remains salient (Atran, 2002;
Boyer, 2001). The cognitive science of religion attempts to explain this salience by implicit
processing of information (Barrett, 2004). They use implicit facts regarding the structure of
memory to explain how rituals affect the social transmission of religious information
(Whitehouse, 2004; McCauley & Lawson, 2002). There is an older tradition in anthropology
of appealing to implicit processes to explain explicit religion (Durkheim, 1964 [1915];
Turner, 1990). Cognitive science seeks to make the connection precise by integrating
religious data to relevant cognitive, neuro-scientific and social science (Lisdorf, 2007).
If there are social functions in religion then a puzzle arises. Why aren’t these functions
explicit in their instructions, for example, as road signs are explicit (ONE WAY)? Further,
why should the explanation of implicit functionality turn become a matter for explicit (indeed
indigent) denial? It appears that we do not wish to understand the operation of our sacred
values as we do the grammar of language. Why? We suggest that the implicit coding of a
coordination functions is an exquisite design feature. Further, the insulation of the coding
from executive control appears to be a matter of design, as is the suppression of further
questioning by negative affect.25
Consider some recent experiments. Wiltermuth and Heath focus to synchronized non-
utilitarian movements and songs. They observes that many rituals are orchestrated and non-
utilitarian. One does not march the goose step singing “Glory to the nation” to repair a bridge
24 Clearly specific exchange equilibrium needs to be given. Again, all the best intentions will not help Stag Hunters lacking instructions. Sacred values need to be connected to specific coordination points. Here we merely sketch a solution to risk aversion. 25 Importantly, there may be non-social functions to religion [see: (U. Schjødt, 2007).]
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or teach mathematics. Suspecting cooperative enhancements, the authors assigned randomly
selected participants into one of four groups, involving tasks and listening to music. The
tasks involved handling plastic cups and listening to the song “O Canada” which would have
no symbolic meaning for the Indiana undergraduates afflicted by it. The authors describe the
music as belonging to an “out-group.” (This seems hardly possible given Canada’s peaceable
citizens and rather pathetic military capacity, nevertheless...) The conditions were: 1)
asynchronous singing and moving; 2) no singing, no moving 3) synchronous singing and
moving and 4) synchronous singing only. They then had participants in all groups play a
public goods game in which each of three participants had 10 tokens in five rounds to
contribute or keep. Tokens left in private accounts earned $0.25 for every member of the
group while tokens placed in public accounts earned $0.50.
The authors found a significant that while initial offers in the non-intervention control and
unsynchronized movement and singing were only slightly lower, they steadily declined,
while in the synchronous conditions they did not. Participants in synchronous conditions
received higher mean payoffs (M = $6.49, SD 5 $1.12) than did their counterparts (M =
$5.96, SD 5 $0.89)(Wiltermuth & Heath, 2008). The authors noted that levels of
cooperation in the synchronous singing condition were similar to those in the synchronous
and moving condition. The data, though striking, do not surprise, given an affective/motor
interface (one taps the pencil…)(Janata & Grafton, 2003). Further, the integration of music to
amygdalar circuits that attach emotional weight to experience and memory are well known,
suggesting wide scope for social coordinative power (Baumgartner, Lutz, Schmidt, & Jäncke,
2006), an early developmental window for symbolic bias (Dunham, et al., 2008) modified in
adolescence(Alcorta, 2008; Alcorta & Sosis, 2005), and an evolutionary trajectory for its
elaboration [hypothesized by (Mithen, 2006)].
Further participants in the synchronous conditions reported enhanced feeling of team
membership, but not increased happiness. This result fits neatly with model Jeffrey Schloss
has suggested (deemed “The Schloxytocin conjecture”) which attributes a special role to the
neurotransmitter oxytocin in ritual settings26. Studies have show that oxytocin increases trust
in cooperative settings (Zak, Stanton, Ahmadi, & Brosnan, 2007). Recently the effect has
been show to modulate risk to cooperative settings only. Persons administered the hormone
26 Jeffrey Schloss, per. comm.
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take risks with cooperative partners, but they do not gamble more in lotteries or wagers
(Petrovic, Kalisch, Singer, & Dolan, 2008). Further, oxytocin affects neurons in the dorsal
striatum, which (as we will see) is associated with goal-oriented reward (Baumgartner, et al.,
2008; Kosfeld, Heinrichs, Zak, & Fischbacher, 2005). And it reduces aversion to faces that
have been conditioned to produce negative affect (Petrovic, et al., 2008). Finally, and most
appropriately, the use of MDMA (Ecstasy) in Raves (large scale communal dance parties)
produces a powerful love and trust cocktail, leading to higher concentrations of oxytocin and
vasopressin (Wolff, Tsapakis, Winstock, & Hartley, 2006). MDMA’s involvement with
serotonin is well-known (Wichems, Hollingsworth, & Bennett, 1995), suggesting there may
have been more smiling had Wiltermuth and Heath used decent music and Ecstasy (which
affects perceptions of well-being and happiness).
Considering recent work on the processing of social emotion, the positive cooperative
outcome absent happiness experience is not surprising. Not only are we able to predict
emotions from situations (Krull, Seger, & Silvera, 2001), we attribute emotions to entire
groups, including our own, and distinguish these from the personal affect of individuals,
including ourselves (Lee & Ottati, 1995). Smith et al find evidence for group level
emotions (as distinct from individual level emotions) that are shared, perceived as shared, and
that both regulate, and motivate coordinated action (Smith, Seger, & Mackie, 2007). These
emotions, it seems, assure coordination by securing common expectations. In ordinary life
they do so implicitly.27
Drawing on intergroup emotions theory, (Seger, Smith, & Mackie, 2009 (forthcoming)) used
implicit primes to bring further support to the conjecture over common awareness and
common motivation, distinct from personal feeling. The team also found a “spontaneous
convergence of emotions” following inexplicit music primes of either the Star Spangled
Banner (nation) or the university anthem: Indiana Fight! -- an effect that held for
visual/symbolic primes, with similar convergence.28 The authors notice that these
27 The songs do not give the rule: “Just go to work, yeah yeah, don’t worry, yeah yeah,
everyone else will turn up too, yeah, yeah…” 28 The effect of symbolically encoded music on social emotion generation and attribution
further suggests that Wiltermuth and Heath might have obtained larger effects for “loaded” music, rather than merely from O’ Canada, the anthem of the menacing barbarians to the north.
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attributions do not merely reflect explicit stereotypes or general knowledge, but rather
provide strategic, predictive power. These attributions further brought a reduction in
explicit reasoning and an increase in risk-taking.
Many questions remain over the effects of religious ritual and symbolic culture in evoking
common, motivating emotions. In a recent study Schjødt and colleagues found strong
activations in the dorsal striatum (of the caudate nucleus) among Danish Christians in
repetitive prayer conditions, but not in the control conditions (singing a nursery rhyme)(Uffe
Schjødt, Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Geertz, & Roepstorff, 2008). These activations form part of the
brain’s reward circuitry, and are the hallmarks of goal-oriented behavior. They are implicated
in behaviors ranging from drug addiction to the punishment of cheaters. Combine a mouse
with a winding lever and some cocaine, and observe a dorsal striatum on fire. Notice that an
awareness of goal-oriented behavior in others will be suggested where prayer is perceived
and personally experienced or remembered as motivationally salient. The goals of others may
be represented as the pristine environment in Caildini’s experiments.29
Further specification regarding goal awareness is given in another study by the same team
looking to the effects of improvisational prayer. The authors observed significant activations
in the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction, temporopolor region and
precuneus. These areas are commonly associated with social-strategic reasoning and classic
theory of mind and body location. The experiment peers into the religious experience and
finds that religious persons engage with their gods as they do each other, not as abstractly
considered concepts or doctrines. The sensory motor apparatus is able to evoke emotions and
motivations in response to others and able to generate similar emotions and motivations
across persons having a similar experience (of what they take to be the same persons). Where
such persons are endowed with authority or form the objects of love, this enables persons in
religious groups to predict coordinated action. Belief, undoubtedly, does matter. However
the role belief plays in securing collaboration remains poorly understood.30 The recent work
29 Haidt notes the use of purity language in religious contexts and links them to somatic states and expressions (Haidt, 2007). Purity, ahhhh. The stain of sin, phew...
30 Boyer’s hypothesis that religious morality is an afterthought to explain moral feeling has
yet to be properly evaluated(Boyer, 2001). Though Shjødts et al’s data complicate that explanatory tact, ToM activation suggests belief, a subtle case seems reasonable: missing the
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on ritual and cooperation may need to be revised with a model that generates goal
synchronization.31
We further notice that much of religion consists of the adoption not merely of coordinated
movements, but of unconventional body postures aimed at cultivating specific states of
awareness. In the Yoga Sutras’ Pantanjali explicitly calls this state of awareness “the
cessation of thought”. Neuroscientists have studied altered states of consciousness leading to
the reduction in awareness of self-agency, an increase in the awareness of unity, and an out-
of-body experience. McNamara, 2009 (forthcoming) reviews the evidence and argues that
such decentring enables the selection and orientation of a “core” self toward defined by
specific goals. At the root of religious experience is a process of “self-transformation” the
pursuit of which ranks among an individual’s most valued ends. Ann Taves argues
persuasively for a model of religious cognition and practice as generating “specialness”, the
drive to “singularize” things and set them apart (Taves, 2009). This idea translates nicely
into the “focal salience” in games of coordination. For common awareness and motivation
enables stag hunting. Tor those whose bodies are fixed by common goals are more
predictable in strategic interaction. Taves’s view combined with our game theoretic model
further supports a recent conjecture from Haidt about what he calls “hive psychology.”
Haidt focuses to the joy of synchronized movement and the ecstatic joy of “self-loss”(Haidt,
Patrick Seder, & Kesebir, 2008). If self-loss means fixation to a collective, coordinated self,
then McNamara’s “unified self” fits the bill, too. Many of these treatments have focused to
memory, and the processes underlying conscious awareness. However the role of the body
in generating the relevant affect has only recently come to be appreciated (Barsalou, Barbey,
Simmons, & Santos, 2005; P. Q. Deeley, Identity, & Identity, 2003; U. Schjødt, 2007), and of
all horses to back in light of recent advances in the social cognitive neurosciences
(Niedenthal, 2007), this -- to our mind -- seems a future winner.
There are innumerably other paths to follow through the dense tangle of religious experience.
Some neuroscientists are looking to the extremes of such experience, focusing to trance (P.Q.
Deeley, 1999) and out of body experiences (P. Q. Deeley, et al.). Spirit possession, too,
implicit features of religion by design suggests enables confabulatory or ‘just-so’ story telling to fill the gap. 31 Again, the evolutionary stability of the mechanism comes from the game it evolved to solve – a game of risk, not deception.
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generates a host of intriguing questions, the tacit elements of which have been experimentally
explored in (Cohen, 2007) and (McNamara, 2009 (forthcoming)). Repetitive fictitious social
interaction (Sorensen, 2007) provides a rich source of further investigation, as does the
interaction of these motivational factors with specific cultural domains in the production of
extreme ritual (Xygalatas, 2008). Further paths take us toward the co-evolution study of
religious minds and cultures, what David Kydd calls “supernatural niche construction”
(Kydd, 2008). Such studies are based on an appreciation that what Jeppe Jensen calls
“normative cognition”32 is subtle, intricate, and embedded in specific cultural frameworks
with their own unique evolutionary trajectories.
While there are many psycho-cultural mechanisms at play, we suggest that many of these
have evolved to serve a common purpose: to reduce risk aversion, by common awareness.
Yet for those who take a social-functionalist posture towards these phenomena, as we do, the
question remains: why does religion encode coordination through implicit channels? Why
doesn’t it instruct through signposts, of the kind we find by roadsides?
Why implicit priming?
We suggest that the implicit encoding of collaborative commitment works best for three
reasons:
1.Time. Behavior must be enacted on the fly, and finely tuned cooperative behavior of the
kind required, for example, in taking out a stag, is poorly executed when looped through
executive circuitry. We do not want a stag hunter to be like Kant, pondering outcomes, fist to
forehead. Emotions are the proximate movers and shakers of bodies. They evaluate
sensory-somatic inputs, and are subsequently affected by top-down processing and the more
refined, computationally heavy processing involved in explicit reasoning. Further, it appears
that where tasks require finely coordinated movements, implicit (non-executive controlled)
synchronization succeeds in target acquisition tasks must faster than individual learning. In
an intriguing experiment Reed and colleagues considered participant limb motions on a task
(moving a two handle rigid crank to place an mark into a experimentally specified target as
fast as possible). The authors state: `However, task completion times indicated that dyads
32 Jensen, per comm. 2008
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performed significantly faster than individuals, even though dyad members exerted large
task-irrelevant forces in opposition to one another, and despite many participants’ perceptions
that their partner was an impediment’(Reed, Peshkin, Hartmann, & Grabowecky, 2006) :365.
The authors note that the coordination of bodies to achieve collaborative outcomes (taking
out that mammoths) would have served important adaptive ends. They express surprise not
over the ability, but rather over scientific inattention to it. (We join this chorus).
2. Small scale validation. While cooperation happens at large scales, it is an emergent
property of decision-making evoked from the first person perspective. Executive processing
does not control our emotional detection and response circuitry, and this isolation enables it
to perform its communication functions reliably. For the outward signals and the motivations
are tightly correlated [see:(Bulbulia, 2009a)]. From the vantage point of individual decision
makers on the ground, emotional expressions etched on the faces of pious partners support
(and indeed must not undercut) the ends of collaborative interaction. From the dance floor,
Uta and Chris observe each other shaking a groove, and become aware that a “trembling-foot
equilibrium” over risk has been overcome. To repeat again, we do not wish to calculate
before a stag hunt.
3. Second-guessing banned. Most important, we have seen that coordination works best when
it bypasses executive control avert second-guessing. A containment that actively sequesters
the evaluation mechanism from executive processing optimizes its control. For we wish the
cues to be reliable. Yet to be reliable responses need to be automated. This design
specification is indispensible. We do not wish for philosophical punch-ups when it comes to
large-scale coordination, asking questions like “What is Hegel thinking about what
Heidegger is thinking about Derrida…?” The spread of disorder threatens coordinated
interaction under risk. We suggest that coordination works best when it anticipates the
motivations and movements of bodies, looking to the strategic second-order deliberation of
exchange partner minds only when the information breaks with prediction (a testable
conjecture). For this, cues must encode emotions and motivations reliably. We suggest that
beliefs are called to the stand of self-awareness mainly as coordination’s supporting
witnesses, and that further, the messages that sacred culture encodes are actively obscured.
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Why is much sacred culture preserved?
Culture is constantly changing. Technology gives obvious examples. The new iPhone is
much better than a rotary dialer. Just over a century ago there were no phones. In the next
century, technology will bring near-telepathic capacities. Think: “Google pizza” and it will
arrive.
The myth of the perennial tradition is deservedly challenged (Stout, 1981). Nevertheless, core
religious symbols and rites endure, and are recognizable over large geographical and
temporal spans. Central elements of our dominant religions have lasted millennia -- our
preferences for specific gods, prophets, and specific rites and scriptures. These things are old.
We return to them, over many generations. Further, despite change, many appear both to
perceive and desire that our traditions be perennial [as did (Eliade, 1969)]. This perception
and value, too, is interesting. We do not perceive and wish the same for our telephones.
The sacred priming model predicts a strong conservation of sacred culture. For our primes
assure best when they are felt to be commonly motivating, by common bodily expectation.
They perform this function best when they are old, we think, for at least three reasons.
1. Framing effects. To place the cues of solidarity in an ancient context places risky
coordination in larger setting of success. The wide-angle lens calls history to the stand, as
expert witness. For the endurance of sacred traditions give evidence of their reliability in
securing risky exchange. Indeed, invoking a tradition’s most humbling defeats highlights the
resilience of a tradition in overcoming defeat. The terrifying stag wandering the
neighborhood cannot compare to our bloody fight with the barbarians. Furthermore, the
failure to maintain a tradition here and now as an instrument for coordination must count
among the losses brought by any failure to hunt down a stag here and now. An old project
will end tragically. This awareness is separate to the goal at hand: some specific stag hunt.
2. Positive externalities. Religions are prone to something like a VHS effect. The algorithm
“keep old” reduces noise as networks extended over distance and time. As convention-
learners overlap, variance in a single reduces the size of a network it may coordinate. Sacred
context is in this respect similar to legal tender. Assurance comes only when partners accept a
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common currency. Littering a world with foreign idols invites uncertainty to coordination’s
party. Thus, there are mutual benefits in the preservation of our ideas -- for the ideas, and for
us. They support our stag hunts. We ensure their continuation (a symbiosis of sorts). The
model predicts conservation of a sacred currency will rank among the chief sacred
commitments in any culture facing risk, over time. We should wish our coordination partners
to worship as we do, irrespective of any defection benefit. Our bedrock conventions are
machine code.
3. Truth. We submit that old is intellectually as well as emotionally impressive, and so robust
when subjected to executive scrutiny. Some old thinks merit respect for what stood behind
making them. Clearly, no every old thing deserves respect. Slavery, patriarchy, and halitosis
are old. However some old things can be acknowledged as distinctive for what has happened
in making them, and for what is yet to come because of them. Dworkin (Dworkin, 1993)
suggests that our sacred values have both a past and future orientation, and wisely so. We
factor the “investments” supporting the objects of our respect. The master’s painting is sacred
not merely for its physical properties – after all, its perfect copy is cheap -- but also, and
perhaps mainly, for its causal history. Even atheists can appreciate that certain creative events
really do lead up to the original, but not the fraud. That appreciation of how something came
to be involves no hocus-pocus. It tracks truth. Thus, devout actors may be rationally justified
in seeking to value and protect certain causal processes, just as conservationists do wild and
rare lineages -- without superstition. Associating coordination with that which intellectually
merits sacred respect may be sensible, and prudent. We will merely state this point, without
defending it. For the other effects are sufficient.
Predicting puzzling endurance
The Lemba people of Botswana claim to be a lost tribe of Israel. The break is alleged to have
occurred when the Assyrians conquered Canaan in 721 B.C.E. -- long ago, far away from
Southern Africa. The Lemba appear indistinguishable from their African neighbors. They
speak Bantu. Further, lost-tribe affiliation is often asserted without truth (notably, by the
Mormons and Falasha). Why believe them?
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Geneticists have recently gathered intriguing data that support this claim. The “Cohan modal
haplotype” consists of 12 Y chromosome markers (passed from fathers to sons) associated
with the (patrilineal) Jewish priestly tradition(Thomas, Parfitt, Weiss, & Skorecki, 2000).
Lemba men posses the CMH in abundance (10% of all men, and 53% of their hereditary
priestly class.) Yet the variant is not found among the Lemba's neighbors. Perhaps the
Lemba are a lost tribe, after all.
Cultural facts are also instructive, and I think equally astonishing. The Lemba avoid pork and
pork-like meats (including hippopotamus). They do not eat shellfish. They circumcise their
male children, keep holy the Sabbath, and maintain a "covenant" with their monotheistic
God. These rules reflect ancient Jewish culture, but are not found among other Bantu
speakers. The Lemba's tradition is preserved mainly orally, so the fidelity does not come
from texts. Pan-human psychology can explain some forms of conservation, for example:
why the Lemba believe (without learning) that all pigs eventually die (Boyer, 1994; Sperber,
1975). However it cannot explain why the Lemba do not eat those succulent pigs.
Suppose the Lemba’s ancestral claim is false. The genes came recently, say, from an amorous
Rabbi wooing his way through Africa. Still, that anyone (including modern Israelis) would
behave as the ancestral Israelites did remains mysterious. We have accepted almost nothing
else from that time. We would accept little of nomadic shepherd culture now. Why their God,
circumcision practices, avoidance of food, and idle Sabbath?
The problem generalizes. Humans overwhelmingly prefer the gods of ancient people. A
recent study gives the following breakdown: Christianity (33%), Islam 21%, Hinduism 14%,
Buddhism 6%, with other folk religions filling in. The world's non-religious population is
cited at 16%. Given the fast rate of culture change occurring in other domains, it should be
striking that we prefer our religions to be 1500-2500 years old. Our taste for gods, Holy
Scriptures, and ritual practice change relatively little for focal elements of these traditions.
To our minds it is inadequate to explain this endurance with the observation that our old
religions coincided with the emergence of large-nation states and the conversion of certain
emperors. Much in culture has been lost since then. This is a conspicuous conservation. We
have barely begun to describe the problem, let alone resolve it. We need to explain why this
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particular aspect of culture was maintained, and how. Thinking of religion as sacred priming,
we think, makes a start.
We have seen that once established, pious cues are subject to evolutionary inertia because
conservation enhances functionality. Whether old really is better (as it sometime may be)
old works better, where risk and uncertainty threaten. The positive externalities of old
symbols, texts, heroes, and behaviors remain in the face of new technologies, strategic
settings, and forms of social organization. Looking to religion’s future, the model forecasts
that a rise in education and technology will not itself directly cause a decline in traditional
signposts. Instead traditional religions will decline only as social worlds achieve higher levels
of equality and stability. Only as social worlds become more predictable and integrated will
their inhabitants become less committed to sacred traditions.33
Conclusion: limits of the model, and a good speech
Provisos
1. We have presented a context-based information model to expose a core functional
organization at the interface of religious cultures and minds. While with think the model
explains much, doubtless there are others functions.
2. Sacred context is important to coordination under risk, but there are other means by
which we secure risky coordination -- traffic signs, charismatic authority, non-religious
culture (including counterculture), education, the moralizing of habit, and other processes
and designs.
3. Reputation effects of the kind Bering, Johnson, Norenzayan and Shariff, and others
discuss remain one of the many psycho-cultural factors that shape cooperative interaction.
Their work remains impressive. We shall link it to this model down the track.
33 The effect seems well supported by the recent data, see: (Norris & Inglehart, 2004).
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4. Defection remains a problem. We have not discussed its solution here. Though
given some uncertainty over a game, we hope to show that the priming model will stably
motivate cooperation in public goods games. We shall pursue a mathematically rigorous
justification another time.
5. Sender-receiver signaling theory remains indispensible to the understanding of
religion. We shall integrate the two models in further work, considering the uptake of
sender-receiver signals (emotional cues) to solution of large-scale coordination
problems(Coward & Gamble, 2008).
6. Beliefs remain important to framing sacred contexts. For they enhance the power of
cues, once evoked. Here too, this remains another stag for another day.
7. This priming model is “a how possible model,” not a just so story. We do not know
how religion happened. This model suggests a plausible, evolutionarily ratifiable path. At
present, the data underdetermine religion’s evolutionary history.
A good speech
The (good) 2009 U.S. presidential inauguration address is replete with sacred primes. We
close with a selection illustrating priming themes [(Obama, 2009) (emphasis to follow is
added)].
The speech places itself in a cosmic setting, where risk is amplified: “gathering clouds and
raging storms” -- not merely “no more summers in the Riviera.”
The hope, is not merely utilitarian: that GDP go up and that a war ends. It is that an ancient
tradition survives, in faith: “America has carried on...because we the people have remained
faithful to the ideals of our forebears... So it has been. So it must be with this generation of
Americans...”
The worry, that risk-dominant hunting will befall a country of stag hunters: “Less measurable
but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that
America's decline is inevitable.”
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The solution to these threats: piety: “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope
over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”
There is no practical advice, for example: to cause the Chinese to buy American cars. The
hunting equilibriums are left open. Piety’s function is to assure risk commitment - it is
otherwise impractical: “Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism
not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.”
The confidence is in part primed by the image of supernatural beings, who speak to us -- sort
of -- in this case conveying the ideals of fallen stag hunters:“…the fallen heroes who lie in
Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of
our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in
something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a
generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.”
The speech ends by decoupling the world, imagining a sacred past and future along side the
present, with saints as exemplars: “Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which
we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work
and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these
things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout
our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a
new era of responsibility -- …there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our
character, than giving our all to a difficult task… This is the price and the promise of
citizenship...the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an
uncertain destiny….”
The tradition’s endurance itself is called to the stand as expert witness for its effectiveness:
“So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have
traveled...America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship... With
hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.”
The message continues by including a future frame, which invokes reputation considerations:
“Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this
41 of 48
journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon
and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to
future generations. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.”
Though an atheist and a New Zealander, Bulbulia came of age in America and found this
speech moving. Frean remained stoic. The trigger from symbol to emotion was never set.
(Perhaps there is time).
Bellah called the intermingling of religious with patriotic themes in American politics “civil
religion”(Bellah, 1967). He suggests that its utility comes from a demonstration that political
power holds itself accountable to a higher law. This interpretation fits the standard sender-
receiver model.
Sacred priming posits a different function. Presidents lie. No matter, few of us interact with
them. We interact with each other, though. Where evoking civil religion primes piety we are
better able to coordinate in uncertain, dangerous worlds. We can do so without monitoring
because sacred context makes us predictable. Exchange becomes predictable, by common
expectation. Sacred resolve, when obvious, fuels risky mutually benefiting collaboration in
large groups.
Coordination without sanction
The question of how society manages to solve large-scale coordination problem rates as one
of the most impressive and mysterious feats of nature. We have only recently begun to
appreciate the problems and attempt answers.
Recent answers have focused on the efficacy of “sanctions” -- both naturally (Dubreuil,
2008) and supernaturally perceived (D. Johnson & Bering, 2009). These treatments are at
best partial. Sacred primes manage coordination problems by causing non-instrumental
values, clearly and reliably. Our sacred traditions do not harbor many errors. They paint our
worlds in implicit primes, which endure. These things are old. These things are true.
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