Humans define the groups to which they belong in abstract terms. Often they strive for lasting intellectual and emotional
bonding with anonymous others, and make their greatest exertions in killing and dying not to preserve their
own lives or to defend their families and friends, but for the sake of an idea—the transcendent moral conception
they form of themselves, of “who we are.”
Across cultures, primary group identity is bounded by sacred values, often in the form of religious beliefs
or transcendental ideologies, which lead some groups to triumph over others because of non-rational commitment
from at least some of its members—to actions that drive success independent, or all out of proportion,
from expected rational outcomes.
Whether for cooperation or conflict, sacred values, like devotion to God or a collective cause,
signal group identity and operate as moral imperatives that inspire non-rational exertions independent
of likely outcomes. In interviews, experiments, and surveys with Palestinians, Israelis, Indonesians,
Indians, Afghans, and Iranians, my research with psychologists Jeremy Ginges and Douglas Medin finds
that offering people material incentives (large amounts of money, guarantees for a life free of political
violence) to compromise sacred values can backfire, increasing stated willingness to use violence toward
compromise.
This research, supported by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, shows that
backfire effects occur both for sacred values with clear religious investment (Jerusalem, Shariah law)
and those with initially none (Iran’s right to nuclear capability, Palestinian refugees’ right of return).
During protracted intergroup conflict, secular issues tend to become sacralized and non-negotiable, regardless
of material rewards or punishments, as with Iran’s nuclear program among regime supporters. In a multiyear
study, we found that Palestinian adolescents who perceived strong threats to their people and were highly
involved in religious ritual were most likely to see political issues like the right of refugees to return
to homes in Israel as absolute moral imperatives, forbidding Palestinian leaders to compromise whatever
the costs.
Our work with Greg Berns and his neuroeconomics team suggests that such values become transcendent,
emotionally-charged yet stable over time, and processed in the brain as duties bound by rules rather
than utilitarian calculations. Neuroimaging also reveals that violations of sacred values trigger emotional
responses consistent with sentiments of moral outrage.
The more antagonistic a group’s neighborhood, the more proprietary the group’s sacred values and rituals,
increasing in-group reliance, but also disbelief and potential conflict toward other groups. An overview
of research by Ginges and colleagues in India, Mexico, Britain, Russia, and Indonesia indicates that
greater participation in religious ritual in large-scale societies is associated with greater parochial
altruism and, in relevant contexts, support for suicide attacks.
This dynamic is behind the paradoxical reality that the world finds itself in today: Modern multiculturalism
and global exposure to multifarious values is increasingly challenged by fundamentalist movements to
revive primary group loyalties through greater ritual commitments to ideological purity.
In an age when religious and sacred causes are resurgent, there is urgent need for scientific effort to
understand them. Now that humankind has acquired through science the power of God to destroy itself with
nuclear weapons, we cannot afford science ignoring religion and the sacred, or scientists simply trying
to reason them away. Policymakers should leverage scientific understanding of what makes religion and
sacred values so potent a force for both cooperation and conflict, to help increase the one and lessen
the other.
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