Ara Norenzayan - Social Psychology and the Evolution of Religiosity and Religions

Some days ago, I got another visit from Ara Norenzayan, professor in social psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. While he valiantly survived my pizza (sorry for my cooking, Ara :-) ), we eagerly exchanged and debated news, studies and theories about the evolution of religiosity and religions. I thoroughly enjoyed the day! And as Ara's Sabbatical just ended, we are about to read some exciting studies in the near future!

I think, Ara is one of the most interesting scholars in the thriving field of Evolutionary Religious Studies, combining two main strengths: 1. He has a feeling for creative studies and experiments which are clarifying and driving evolutionary hypotheses. 2. Cooperating and giving other's space to grow, he is winning superb people for the topic, i.e. his former student Azim Shariff and a range of scientific partners from different fields.

His research interests are:

* Cognitive science of religion
* The role of religion in altruism, sacrifice, and violence
* Psychological foundations of culture
* Issues of cultural variability and universality in psychology
* Relations between culture and evolution

From early on, Ara participated constructively in those lively debates concerning the biocultural evolution (pdf).

He and Shariff won international acclaim by an experimental study about religious priming and cooperation (pdf), resulting in another well-taken article in Science (pdf).

Another fascinating study explored the secularizing effects of reading an anti-religious text from Richard Dawkins (pdf).

And if you want to discover more: Just visit Ara's Homepage!