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Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies

Evolutionary definitions of altruism are only concerned with reproductive consequences and not motives or other psychological mechanisms, making them ideal for generalization to all forms of organisms. Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory explains altruistic behavior toward genetic relatives and has...

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Autores principales: Rezvani Nejad, Saeed, Borjali, Ahmad, Khanjani, Mahdi, Kruger, Daniel J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303587/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34039054
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049211011745
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author Rezvani Nejad, Saeed
Borjali, Ahmad
Khanjani, Mahdi
Kruger, Daniel J.
author_facet Rezvani Nejad, Saeed
Borjali, Ahmad
Khanjani, Mahdi
Kruger, Daniel J.
author_sort Rezvani Nejad, Saeed
collection PubMed
description Evolutionary definitions of altruism are only concerned with reproductive consequences and not motives or other psychological mechanisms, making them ideal for generalization to all forms of organisms. Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory explains altruistic behavior toward genetic relatives and has generated extensive empirical support. Trivers’ theory of reciprocal altruism helps explain patterns of helping among non-kin, and other research has demonstrated that human helping intentions follow fitness consequences from age-based reproductive value on altruism. The current study examines a novel psychological factor, belief in the afterlife, which may influence altruistic helping intentions. Belief in the afterlife was incorporated into a previous study design assessing the effects of a target’s genetic relatedness and age-based reproductive value. The influences of inclusive fitness and target age were reproduced in a non-Western sample of participants (N = 300) in Iran. Belief in the afterlife predicted the overall confidence of risking one’s life to save another across all targets, and also moderated the effects of genetic relatedness and target age. Rather than promoting altruism equitably or advantaging those favored by adaptive tendencies, higher belief in an afterlife aligned with these tendencies in promoting further favoritism toward close kin and younger targets with higher reproductive value.
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spelling pubmed-103035872023-08-17 Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies Rezvani Nejad, Saeed Borjali, Ahmad Khanjani, Mahdi Kruger, Daniel J. Evol Psychol Original Research Article Evolutionary definitions of altruism are only concerned with reproductive consequences and not motives or other psychological mechanisms, making them ideal for generalization to all forms of organisms. Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory explains altruistic behavior toward genetic relatives and has generated extensive empirical support. Trivers’ theory of reciprocal altruism helps explain patterns of helping among non-kin, and other research has demonstrated that human helping intentions follow fitness consequences from age-based reproductive value on altruism. The current study examines a novel psychological factor, belief in the afterlife, which may influence altruistic helping intentions. Belief in the afterlife was incorporated into a previous study design assessing the effects of a target’s genetic relatedness and age-based reproductive value. The influences of inclusive fitness and target age were reproduced in a non-Western sample of participants (N = 300) in Iran. Belief in the afterlife predicted the overall confidence of risking one’s life to save another across all targets, and also moderated the effects of genetic relatedness and target age. Rather than promoting altruism equitably or advantaging those favored by adaptive tendencies, higher belief in an afterlife aligned with these tendencies in promoting further favoritism toward close kin and younger targets with higher reproductive value. SAGE Publications 2021-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10303587/ /pubmed/34039054 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049211011745 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research Article
Rezvani Nejad, Saeed
Borjali, Ahmad
Khanjani, Mahdi
Kruger, Daniel J.
Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title_full Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title_fullStr Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title_full_unstemmed Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title_short Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies
title_sort belief in an afterlife influences altruistic helping intentions in alignment with adaptive tendencies
topic Original Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303587/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34039054
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14747049211011745
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