10 results for "Pascal Boyer"

Cognitive aspects of religious ontologies: how brain processes constrain religious concepts

Pascal Boyer

Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, Vol. 17 No. 1 · 1999 · English · DOAJ

A cognitive study of religion shares some of its concerns with traditional approaches in cultural anthropology or the history of religion: It aims to explain why and how humans in most cultural groups develop religious ideas and practices, and why these have recurrentand enduring features. By…

Threat-Related Information Suggests Competence: A Possible Factor in the Spread of Rumors.

Pascal Boyer; Nora Parren

PLoS ONE, Vol. 10 No. 6 · 2015 · English · DOAJ Scopus

Information about potential danger is a central component of many rumors, urban legends, ritual prescriptions, religious prohibitions and witchcraft crazes. We investigate a potential factor in the cultural success of such material, namely that a source of threat-related information may be…

Also available at: PLOS

Human Cultures Through the Scientific Lens

Pascal Boyer

Open Book Publishers · 2021 · English · Open Library

Cultural differences in investing in others and in the future: why measuring trust is not enough.

Pascal Boyer; Pierre Lienard; Jing Xu

PLoS ONE, Vol. 7 No. 7 · 2012 · English · DOAJ Scopus

Standard measures of generalized trust in others are often taken to provide reliable indicators of economic attitudes in different countries. Here we compared three highly distinct groups, in Kenya, China and the US, in terms of more specific attitudes, [a] people's willingness to invest in the…

Also available at: PLOS

When to Blame Victims for Negligence: Noncooperators Are Deemed Responsible for Their Own Hardship

Pascal Boyer; Eric Chantland; Lou Safra

Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 22 · 2024 · English · DOAJ Scopus

In four preregistered studies, we tested implications from a cooperation model that explains victim-blaming as a strategic move, as a way for people to avoid the costs of helping victims (who seem to be unpromising cooperation partners) without paying the reputational cost of being seen as…

Cultural evolution from the producers’ standpoint

Jean-Baptiste André; Nicolas Baumard; Pascal Boyer

Evolutionary Human Sciences, Vol. 5 · 2023 · English · DOAJ Scopus

Standard approaches to cultural evolution focus on the recipients or consumers. This does not take into account the fitness costs incurred in producing the behaviours or artefacts that become cultural, i.e. widespread in a social group. We argue that cultural evolution models should focus on these…

The Impact of Precaution and Practice on the Performance of a Risky Motor Task

David Eilam; Joel Mort; Pascal Boyer et al.

Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 3 No. 3 · 2013 · English · DOAJ Scopus

The association between threat perception and motor execution, mediated by evolved precaution systems, often results in ritual-like behavior, including many idiosyncratic acts that seem irrelevant to the task at hand. This study tested the hypothesis that threat-detection during performance of a…

Perception of Gay Men as Defectors and Commitment to Group Defense Predict Aggressive Homophobia

Florian van Leeuwen; Helena Miton; Rengin B. Firat et al.

Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 14 · 2016 · English · DOAJ Scopus

Homophobia encompasses a variety of attitudes and behaviors with distinct causal paths. We focus on aggressive homophobia, a propensity to feel anger and express aggression toward gay men. We investigated the conjecture that homosexual males might be seen, in recent Western cultures, as defectors…