View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Enlighten: Publications Fincher, C.L., and Thornhill, R. (2012) Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: the cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35 (2). pp. 61-79. ISSN 0140- 525X Copyright © 2012 Cambridge University Press A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge The content must not be changed in any way or reproduced in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder(s) When referring to this work, full bibliographic details must be given http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/77679/ Deposited on: 5 April 2013 Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2012) 35, 61–119 doi:10.1017/S0140525X11000021 Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity Corey L. Fincher Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 fi
[email protected] http://biology.unm.edu/fincher Randy Thornhill Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
[email protected] http://biology.unm.edu/Thornhill/rthorn.htm Abstract: Throughout the world people differ in the magnitude with which they value strong family ties or heightened religiosity. We propose that this cross-cultural variation is a result of a contingent psychological adaptation that facilitates in-group assortative sociality in the face of high levels of parasite-stress while devaluing in-group assortative sociality in areas with low levels of parasite-stress.