What's more, when women are shown an array of attractive, promiscuous women, they're more likely to reject the notion that casual sex is OK.
How does religion fit into this? Douglas Kenrick (Arizona State University), who's an expert on human mating strategies, has set out to investigate this.
He started with a hypothesis. He suspected that when women face more competition they would also report being more religious. The idea is that being more religious will somehow force prospective partners to be more faithful.
Now, to me that doesn't really make sense. You would expect women in a competitive marketplace to want other people (especially men) to be more religious - but not themselves. If women are in a position to demand fidelity, then men would respond by claiming to be religious (in an attempt to persuade women that they are a good, faithful 'catch'). But if men were in demand, then they could demand less 'religiously virtuous' relationships.
But that's really a moot point, because Kenrick didn't find what he expected to.What he did was to show students pictures of 6 attractive men or six attractive women (the ruse was that they were helping improve a fictional dating service). He then asked them about their religiosity.
It turned out that neither men nor women said they were more religious after seeing pictures of the opposite sex. But both men and women reported being more religious after seeing pictures of the same sex.
So, when you remind people of the competition, they get to thinking that the mating odds are stacked against them. And they respond (at least, these US students respond) by claiming to be more religious.
It's a puzzling result if you start from the assumption that people assert their religiosity in order to advertise their secular fidelity. Why on earth should women claim to be religious, when that might make them less attractive to potential mates?
So if these responses aren't about advertising fidelity, what can explain them? I think it's simple. In the USA, religion is a social norm. Atheists are outsiders. So, if you want to make yourself look attractive, then you claim to be religious.
Indeed, there's some great evidence that that's exactly what happens - which is the topic of the next blog post.
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Li, Y., Cohen, A., Weeden, J., & Kenrick, D. (2009). Mating competitors increase religious beliefs Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.017
This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.
Also known as positive frequency-dependent selection: you're fitter when you're ordinary (as opposed to negative FDS, where being rare is better).
ReplyDeletePerhaps they see people of the same gender and think "why is this dating service showing me this? I'm not into other men/women so I will tell them I'm religious - I expect most people to think religious = hate homosexuals".
ReplyDeletePersonally I find religion extremely creepy, so "I'm religious" will always get a "bye-bye" from me. Maybe that's the problem with my (unsuccessful) mating strategy. I should be out there getting more religious teenagers pregnant.at
Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I wasn't brought up to think that religion is a good thing so I think I speak with some objectivity here. I think that most people are religious in their own way and they assume that a member of the same gender will understand their "type of religion." When men see a woman they think that religion is something to keep them walking the straight and narrow. When women see a man they think that religion is something to control them, keep them in the house.
ReplyDelete@madscientist: the students were shown the photos as part of an evaluation of the (fake) dating service. So they weren't asked to rate or evaluate the individuals. It was just a fairly subliminal way to get them thinking "wow, there's a lot of guys/girls out there".
ReplyDelete@kate: so why would they claim to be more religious when reminded of the competition for mates?
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think it is contradictory to hypothesize that it could still be about the fidelity aspect. A fairly routine part of religiosity is the desire for others to share the same belief -- and not uncommonly, an imperative to try to convince them to do so! -- so if it follows that a person concerned about fidelity would hope potential partners were more religious, it's not particularly surprising to me that that might induce people to report their own religiosity more highly.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the subconscious thought pattern is roughly: "Crap, lots of competition. So fidelity would be advantageous for me. Fidelity is good. Religion preaches fidelity. So religion is good."
Or something like that. I think your take -- the positive FDS as Bjorn points out -- is just as, if not more, plausible. I'm just saying that the religiosity/fidelity connection can't necessarily be ruled out.
@ Kate, Tom, James
ReplyDeleteAccording to Douglas Kenrick, you are on the right track! He assumed that respondents tended to swap their mating strategy from short-term to long-term reproduction when confronted with high competition: By emphasizing their religiosity (that is: belief in surveilling supernatural agents as e.g. God), they tended to emphasize their trustworthiness and fidelity (which is of biological interest to both sexes!), as "cheaper" strategies probably wouldn't work.
And, as the data showed (see Tom's post about Atheists having fewer kids - you, too, @Madscientist ;-) ), there seems to be some credit to the hypothesis: Religious do tend to form (on average) more stable and bigger families - passing their genes on to more kids. Thus, I would agree with @Kate that Douglas' findings seem to be congruent with everyday live experience and evolutionary theory.
The only thing I can add, other than even the churches realize religion doesn't seem to stem the divorce rate in the US- Keep an eye on China. Selective termination has skewed the population. In 20 years there will be tens millions of men left wanting for a mate. David Mc
ReplyDeleteThe key thing to remember is that men and women have different preferred mating strategies. When there is a surplus of men, there are more marriages. When there's a surplus of women, there are fewer marriages and more short term relationships.
ReplyDeleteThe theory goes that that's because when men are in demand they can dictate the terms of the relationship, and the relationships they seek are more causal (generalising wildly here, of course, but you get the point).
So when women are in surplus, they respond by lowering their relationship demands and accepting casual relationships.
Since casual relationships are non-religious, if a woman portrays herself as religious in such circumstances then she will be at a competitive disadvantage - she runs the risk of being passed over for another women who is prepared to enter a casual relationship, and perhaps end up with no mating partner at all.
Forgot to add: however, this does not apply if religion is advertising some other property - for example, that you are socially desirable and 'normal'.
ReplyDeleteSince women report being more religious when facing a lot of competition, I think the reason is likely to be that religion is a badge of social desirability - and the evidence for that is in the post I just put up.
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteyou wrote: "The key thing to remember is that men and women have different preferred mating strategies."
Yes - but if they agree to cooperate in long-term reproduction strategy (traditionally called: marriage), "both" would lose from defecting partners: A woman might be left alone to raise the kids, a man might end up betrayed by investing in offspring that are not his (without knowing).
So, if both sexes are in a situation with little chance on short-term-strategies, they should tend to advertise their fidelity and trustworthiness for long-term cooperation.
"Since women report being more religious when facing a lot of competition, I think the reason is likely to be that religion is a badge of social desirability - and the evidence for that is in the post I just put up."
Yes, I would agree to that (see above)! And I am offering a bet: All of those societies socially suppressing religious signalling to build trust among young people e.g. as "old-fashioned", "so not cool" etc., are demographically imploding (that is: fertility below 2.0 births per woman), lacking long-term-families with enough children. Evolution in the process! :-)
Michael, if both sexes share a preferred mating strategy then you would expect them to respond the same way in the face of restricted mate opportunities. But the evidence is that they do not. Which is what makes the results perplexing.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is - as long as the term of sexual selection remains cloudy! There have been corresponding results in the study of musicality (e.g., girls used to cheer not only Robby Williams, but also the Spice Girls). As I did work with some German studies on the subject, too, I plan to do a blogpost on the matter in the upcoming weeks.
ReplyDeleteAt least in the late 20th-early 21st Century, religious women (and men) DO engage in casual sex, in rates not so different from those of non-religious, so there might not be much downside to their claiming to be religious. They get the positive credits associated with being religious, but are not sending a signal that they are not open to more casual sexual offers/
ReplyDelete