Supernatural punishment, in-group biases, and material insecurity: experiments and ethnography from Yasawa, Fiji

Abstract

Threat of supernatural punishment can promote prosociality in large-scale societies; however, its impact in smaller societies with less powerful deities is less understood. Also, while perceived material insecurity has been associated with increasing religious belief, the relationships between insecurity, supernatural punishment beliefs, and prosocial behavior are unclear. In this study, we explore how material insecurity moderates the supernatural punishment beliefs that promote different expectations about distant, anonymous strangers among a sample of villagers living in Yasawa, Fiji. We examined this relationship by employing an economic game designed to measure local recipient favoritism vs. egalitarian, rule-following behavior. Using indices of three different “punishing” agents – the Christian God (“Bible God”), the deified ancestors (Kalou-vu), and the police – we find that increased belief in Bible God punishment predicts less local recipient favoritism at low and moderate but not high material insecurity. Punishing Kalou-vu also predicts less favoritism at low and moderate insecurity, but more favoritism at high insecurity. Police punishment poorly predicts favoritism, suggesting that secular authority has less impact on isolated communities. We discuss implications for understanding how different kinds of supernatural and secular agent beliefs impact prosocial behavior.

Keywords:

• economic games
• favoritism
• Fiji
• gods' minds
• insecurity
• supernatural punishment

Acknowledgements

We thank Benjamin Grant Purzycki for his revision advice and content feedback, our Fiji content expert anonymous reviewer for pointed tips on clarification and future directions for this research, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on previous versions of this report. Many thanks to Daniel Hruschka, all Virtues in Conflict Project contributors, Steve Heine, and Jeremy Beisanz. Thanks also to Mela Tui, Litia Feoko, Paula Tekei, and Sitiveni Naileqe for their assistance in the field. Finally, we extend our sincerest gratitude to the villagers, our kind hosts, and participants.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. There is substantial regional variation in some aspects of traditional Fijian ways of life. In Yasawa, yavusas form chiefdoms with one or two villages. Elsewhere in Fiji, chiefdoms may encompass multiple yavusa. See Supplementary Online Material for more detail.

2. See Supplementary Online Material for more on sex-based division of labor and associations with belief, insecurity, and RAG favoritism.

3. Elsewhere in Fiji, the Christian God is also referred to as Kalou dina, or “true God.” While the phrase Kalou dina is understood in Yasawa, the term is not used locally. This “true God” terminology also connotes the Christian God's higher status above the Kalou-vu in Fijian socio-spiritual hierarchy. The Kalou dina takes care of the universe, and the Kalou-vu take care of local matters within their area of influence. Although the Kalou-vu mostly focus concern on the traditional matters of village life, they are sometimes believed to see and affect the people in their lineage (who are thus under their influence) from afar. Yasawans also often pray to the Bible God for help and forgiveness when an angry Kalou-vu is suspected of causing illness or other troubles. Evangelical missionizing in Yasawa has rebranded the Kalou-vu as tevoro or “devils/demons.” Tevoro can cause general bad luck, illness, or death, and are also responsible for the power that sorcerers use to harm others. Importantly, people are most vulnerable to tevoro power when they fail to lead a proper traditional life – similar to behaviors that may provoke a Kalou-vu. How tevoro compare to Kalou-vu in protecting the vanua (the land and its people) is an active topic of our ongoing research.

4. The stream running through Teci village in the center of the island is the only place with sufficient water for taro gardens. Only a handful of Teci villagers actually consume the taro grown here, and then only in the past decade.

5. Our participants likely assumed that this was another Christian indigenous Fijian. Fiji has a large population of ethnic Indians who are Hindu or Muslim. However, Indo-Fijians are rare except on the main islands of Vanua Levu and Viti Levu. Conversationally, Yasawas often refer to Viti Levu as “the mainland” in contrast to, for example, the other islands in the Yasawan chain; they rarely refer to these large islands with substantial Indo-Fijian populations as “islands.”

6. For analysis of additional vignette and social closeness interview data, see McNamara and Henrich (submitted).

7. An additional two participants were dropped from analysis because they did not complete the supernatural and secular punishment interview.

8. Self and insider are aggregated because previous analysis showed the same patterns of results when conditions were analyzed separately. We retain a dummy coded variable to account for the different conditions in the present, aggregated analysis to maintain statistical control on any differences that may not have emerged when the conditions were analyzed separately.

9. Food insecurity correlates negatively with both insider and self-allocations while financial insecurity correlates positively with both – although neither reaches statistical significance. Using the predictors separately shows the same patterns of results, with similar effect sizes but more statistically significant estimates (see SOM).

10. To avoid over-fitting, Table 3 models include punishment x insecurity interactions considered independently; see the SOM for models with all interactions together.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of British Columbia's Psychology Department. The RAG was in conjunction with the Arizona State University-based Virtues in Conflict Project, funded by the Templeton Foundation-funded University of Chicago Science of Virtues Project. The authors thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC) for support during the preparation of this report.