tandfonline | 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.
