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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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
SAGE Publications
2021
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10303587 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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