Religious healing specialists such as shamans often use magic. Evolutionary theories that seek to explain why laypersons find these specialists convincing focus on the origins of magical cognition and belief in the supernatural. In two studies, we reframe the problem by investigating relationships among ethnomedical specialists, who possess extensive theories of disease that can often appear “supernatural,” and religious healing specialists. In study 1, we coded and analyzed cross-cultural descriptions of ethnomedical specialists in 47 cultures, finding 24% were also religious (...) leaders and 74% used supernatural theories of disease. We identified correlates of the use of supernatural concepts among ethnomedical specialists; incentives and disincentives to patronize ethnomedical specialists; and distinct clusters of ethnomedical specialists that we label prestigious teachers, feared diviners, and efficacious healers. In study 2, we interviewed 84 Maasai pastoralists and their traditional religious and non-religious healing specialists. We found that laypersons relied on medicinal services based on combinations of efficacy, religious identity, and interpersonal trust. Further, laypersons and specialists largely used abstract concepts that were not conspicuously supernatural to describe how local medicines work. We conclude that religious healers in traditional societies often fulfill a practical and specialized service to local clients, and argue that supernatural theories of disease often reflect abstract cognition about rare phenomena whose causes are unobservable (e.g., infection, mental illness) instead of a separate “religious” style of thinking. (shrink)

Cultural evolutionary theories define prestige as social rank that is freely conferred on individuals possessing superior knowledge or skill, in order to gain opportunities to learn from such individuals. Consequently, information provided by prestigious individuals should be more memorable, and hence more likely to be culturally transmitted, than information from non-prestigious sources, particularly for novel, controversial arguments about which preexisting opinions are absent or weak. It has also been argued that this effect extends beyond the prestigious individual’s relevant domain of (...) expertise. We tested whether the prestige and relevance of the sources of novel, controversial arguments affected the transmission of those arguments, independently of their content. In a four-generation linear transmission chain experiment, British participants recruited online read two conflicting arguments in favour of or against the replacement of textbooks by computer tablets in schools. Each of the two conflicting arguments was associated with one of three sources with different levels of prestige and relevance. Participants recalled the pro-tablets and anti-tablets arguments associated with each source and their recall was then passed to the next participant within their chain. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find a reliable effect of either the prestige or relevance of the sources of information on transmission fidelity. We discuss whether the lack of a reliable effect of prestige on recall might be a consequence of differences between how prestige operates in this experiment and in everyday life. (shrink)

This study discusses the impact of different economic indicators on economic stability, including honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC taking into account the double mediating role of environmental sustainability and sustainable development, while considering the latest COVID-19 situation. This study adopted primary data collection methods and obtained data from the employees of CPEC by using questionnaires and smart-PLS for analysis purposes. The results revealed that honest leadership, improved infrastructure, revenue generation, and CPEC have a positive nexus with economic (...) stability. Despite the severe impact of COVID-19 on the country’s economy, the economic corridor plays a vital role in stabilizing the state’s economy and supports all those related to this phenomenal project either directly or indirectly. (shrink)

Research in various disciplines has highlighted that humans are uniquely able to solve the problem of cooperation through the informal mechanisms of reputation and gossip. Reputation coordinates the evaluative judgments of individuals about one another. Direct observation of actions and communication are the essential routes that are used to establish and update reputations. In large groups, where opportunities for direct observation are limited, gossip becomes an important channel to share individual perceptions and evaluations of others that can be used to (...) condition cooperative action. Although reputation and gossip might consequently support large-scale human cooperation, four puzzles need to be resolved to understand the operation of reputation-based mechanisms. First, we need empirical evidence of the processes and content that form reputations and how this may vary cross-culturally. Second, we lack an understanding of how reputation is determined from the muddle of imperfect, biased inputs people receive. Third, coordination between individuals is only possible if reputation sharing and signaling is to a large extent reliable and valid. Communication, however, is not necessarily honest and reliable, so theoretical and empirical work is needed to understand how gossip and reputation can effectively promote cooperation despite the circulation of dishonest gossip. Fourth, reputation is not constructed in a social vacuum; hence we need a better understanding of the way in which the structure of interactions affects the efficiency of gossip for establishing reputations and fostering cooperation. (shrink)

Despite decades of research, we still lack a clear explanation for the emergence and persistence of inequality. Here we propose and evaluate a marginal utility of inequality hypothesis that nominates circumscription and environmental heterogeneity as independent, necessary conditions for the emergence of intragroup material inequality. After coupling the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample with newly generated data from remote sensing, we test predictions derived from this hypothesis using a multivariate generalized additive model that accounts for spatial and historical dependence as well as (...) subsistence mode. Our analyses show that the probability a society will be stratified increases significantly as a function of proxies of environmental heterogeneity and environmental circumscription. This supports the hypothesis that increasing environmental heterogeneity and circumscription drives the emergence and persistence of inequality among documented societies across the globe. We demonstrate how environmental heterogeneity and circumscription produce situations that limit individuals’ options so that some may find it in their best interest to give up some autonomy for material gain, while others may find it in their best interest to give up some material resources for another individual’s time or deference. These results support the marginal utility of inequality framework and enable future explorations of the ecological conditions that facilitate the emergence of intragroup inequality through time and across the globe. (shrink)