How Supernatural Beliefs Protect Cooperation in Human Societies
Imagine a world where your survival depends on the generosity of others during times of crisis, and their survival depends on you. This is not a hypothetical scenario but a reality for many human societies that use need-based transfers—systems of sharing resources based on need and ability, not on debt or repayment3 7 .
From Maasai pastoralists in East Africa to ranchers in the American Southwest, these systems have allowed communities to pool risk and survive in volatile environments for generations.
However, such systems face a fundamental challenge: the temptation to cheat. What stops someone from asking for help when they don't truly need it, or from refusing to give when they are able? Recent research suggests that sacredness and supernatural punishment beliefs may be the invisible glue that holds these cooperative systems together. This article explores the fascinating intersection of human cooperation, need-based transfers, and the sacred beliefs that make them possible.
Need-based transfer systems are governed by two simple but powerful rules: (1) ask only when you are in genuine need, and (2) give when asked, provided you can do so without threatening your own survival3 . This framework creates an effective algorithm for risk-pooling—the practice of distributing risk across a group rather than leaving individuals to face catastrophic events alone3 .
Coastal villages in Fiji maintain connections with distant settlements so that if a cyclone destroys one area, the support network remains intact to offer help7 .
"When you pay your insurance premiums, you do not hope to one day recoup them by filing a claim. After all, if you file a claim, that means something bad has happened. What you hope is that all your premiums end up being a complete waste of money. That would mean you had a very lucky, trouble-free life"
Unlike insurance or debt-based systems, need-based transfers don't require meticulous accounting or expect direct repayment. As researcher Lee Cronk explains, the ideal outcome is that help is never needed, but the security comes from knowing it's available when required3 .
The vulnerability of need-based transfer systems becomes apparent when we consider the different ways people can cheat. According to research, there are two primary forms of cheating in these systems: (1) asking for help when not in genuine need (greediness), and (2) refusing to give when asked and able (stinginess)1 .
| Type of Cheating | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Greediness | Asking for help when not in genuine need | Requesting livestock during a minor shortage that doesn't threaten survival |
| Stinginess | Refusing to give when asked and able to help | Denying a request despite having sufficient resources to share without becoming needy |
The visibility of resources appears to play a crucial role in preventing cheating. Among the Maasai, livestock—the main resource—is highly visible. As researchers note, "it is difficult to hide a cow"3 . This observability makes both genuine need and inability to help difficult to fake. But what happens when resources are easier to conceal?
To investigate how resource visibility affects cheating, researchers created an experimental economic game simulating the lives of Maasai pastoralists1 .
100 participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, with 82 completing the game1 .
Pairs of individuals played a game where they managed herds subject to growth and disasters1 .
The experiment compared behavior when resources were visible versus hidden1 .
The findings were replicated in two additional experiments with university students and participants from Prolific, strengthening the results1 .
The findings consistently demonstrated that hidden resources increased cheating across different participant populations. When players couldn't see each other's actual resource levels, they were more likely to break both rules of need-based transfers—asking when not in need and refusing to give when able.
If hidden resources increase cheating, how do societies with concealable resources maintain cooperation? This is where sacredness and supernatural punishment beliefs may play a crucial role.
Recent research suggests that supernatural punishment beliefs function as powerful tools of social control that help maintain cooperation, particularly when human monitoring fails5 . These beliefs are more widespread than previously thought, appearing not just in large world religions but also in small-scale societies.
Unlike obvious attempts at manipulation, supernatural narratives often align with people's existing intuitions about justice and morality, making them more readily accepted5 .
When resources are hidden and human monitoring is impossible, the belief that supernatural forces are watching may deter cheating5 .
Supernatural punishment provides a low-cost way to enforce norms without requiring constant human surveillance5 .
| Aspect | Need-Based Transfers | Account-Keeping Transfers |
|---|---|---|
| Basis for Transfer | Need of recipient | Debt or expectation of repayment |
| Relationship | Long-term, maintained even without transactions | Can be terminated if debts aren't repaid |
| Best For | Unpredictable needs and risks | Predictable needs and exchanges |
| Examples | Osotua (Maasai), emergency help (ranchers) | Labor exchanges for branding, modern banking |
In the case of need-based transfers, sacredness acts as an "implied threat"—the notion that violating the rules of sharing might incur not just social consequences but supernatural ones as well1 5 . This creates a powerful disincentive for cheating, even when the material benefits of cheating might otherwise be tempting.
Studying need-based transfers and supernatural beliefs requires innovative methods and tools from multiple disciplines. Researchers in this field employ a diverse toolkit to understand the complexities of human cooperation.
| Research Method | Description | Key Insights Generated |
|---|---|---|
| Agent-Based Modeling | Computer simulations of artificial societies following specific rules | Need-based transfers outperform debt-based approaches in volatile environments7 |
| Experimental Economic Games | Controlled games where participants make decisions about resource sharing | Hidden resources increase cheating rates in need-based transfer systems1 |
| Cross-Cultural Fieldwork | Anthropological research across diverse societies | Need-based transfers emerge independently in different cultures facing similar challenges3 7 |
| Lab Experiments | Laboratory studies controlling specific variables | Both greediness and stinginess increase when resource visibility decreases1 |
The connection between sacredness, supernatural punishment, and need-based transfers reveals a profound truth about human societies: cooperation often requires more than just material calculations. When practical monitoring fails, sacred beliefs may provide the necessary enforcement to maintain systems of mutual aid.
This research challenges us to reconsider the role of the sacred in human evolution and social organization. Rather than dismissing supernatural beliefs as mere superstition, we might recognize their functional value in enabling large-scale cooperation—perhaps even in our modern societies.
"When you're an academic you write and you teach your classes and maybe the students connect with it or maybe they don't. But through that display, the lessons from the work on osotua were getting across to people—it's really gratifying for me to think that people are understanding the logic of generosity towards those in need"
The sacredness surrounding need-based transfers may indeed represent an implied threat of supernatural punishment, but it also represents something more hopeful: our enduring capacity to create systems that bind us together in mutual support, even in the face of life's uncertainties.
Supernatural beliefs help maintain cooperative systems when material incentives alone are insufficient.