Publications
Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
| Forthcoming | Purzycki, Benjamin, Jordan Kiper, John Shaver, Daniel Finkel, and Richard Sosis Religion. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, eds. R.A. Scott and S.M. Kosslyn, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. |
| Forthcoming | Sosis, Richard and Jordan Kiper Religion is more than belief: What evolutionary theories of religion tell us about religious commitment. In Challenges to Religion and Morality: Disagreements and Evolution, eds. M. Bergmann and P. Kain. New York: Oxford University Press. |
| Forthcoming | Shariff, Azim, Benjamin Purzycki, and Richard Sosis Religions as Cultural Solutions to Social Living, in New Directions in the Psychology of Culture, ed. A.B. Cohen. |
| Forthcoming | Purzycki, Benjamin, Omar Haque, and Richard Sosis Extending Evolutionary Accounts of Religion beyond the Mind: Religions as Adaptive Systems in The Evolution of Religion: Critical Perspectives and New Directions. |
| Forthcoming | Sosis, Richard and Jordan Kiper Sacred versus Secular Values: Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion and Religious Freedom, in Homo Religiosus: Reflections on Humankind’s Persistent Religiosity |
| 2013 | Alcorta, Candace S. and Richard Sosis Ritual, Religion, and Violence: an Evolutionary Perspective. Handbook of Religion and Violence, eds. M. Juergensmeyer, M. Kitts, M. Jerryson, pp. 571-596. New York: Oxford University Press. |
| 2012 | Sosis, Richard, Erika J. Phillips, Candace S. Alcorta Sacrifice and Sacred Values: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religious Terrorism. Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War, eds. T. Shackelford & V. Weeks-Schackelford, pp. 233-253. New York: Oxford University Press. |
| 2012 | Purzycki, Benjamin, Daniel Finkel, John Shaver, Nathan Wales, Adam B. Cohen, and Richard Sosis What does God Know? Supernatural Agents’ Perceived Access to Socially Strategic and Nonstrategic Information. Cognitive Science 36:846-869. |
| 2012 | Blumstein, DT, S. Atran, S. Field, M.E. Hochberg, D.P.P. Johnson, R. Sagarin, R. Sosis, and B. Thayer The Peacock’s Tail: Lessons from Evolution for Effective Signaling in International Politics. Cliodynamics 3:191–214. |
| 2011 | Bulbulia, Joseph and Richard Sosis Signaling Theory and the Evolution of Religions. Religion, 41:3, 363-388 |
| 2011 | Sosis, Richard and Joseph Bulbulia The Behavioral Ecology of Religion: The Benefits and Costs of One Evolutionary Approach. Religion 41:3, 341-362 |
| 2011 | Wildman, Wesley J. and Richard Sosis Stability of Groups with Costly Beliefs and Practices. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. 14 (3) 6. |
| 2011 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis Our Gods: Variation in Supernatural Minds, in Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature, eds. Ulrich Frey, C. Stormer, K.P. Willfuhr, pp. 77- 93, New York: Springer. |
| 2011 | Sosis, Richard Why Sacred Lands are not Indivisible: The Cognitive Foundations of Sacralizing Land. Journal of Terrorism Research 2:17-44. |
| 2011 | Sosis, Richard and W. Penn Handwerker Psalms and Coping with Uncertainty: Israeli Women’s Responses to the 2006 Lebanon War. American Anthropologist 113:40-55. |
| 2010 | Bulled, Nicola and Richard Sosis Examining the influence of life expectancy on reproductive timing, total fertility, and educational attainment. Human Nature 21:269-289. |
| 2010 | Saragin, R., C. Alcorta, S. Atran, D. Blumstein, G. Dietl, M. Hochberg, D. Johnson, S. Levin, E.Medin, J. Medin, E. Prescott, R. Sosis, T. Taylor, J. Tooby, G. Vermeij Decentralize, Adapt and Cooperate. Nature 465: 292-293. |
| 2010 | Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Signals and Rituals of Humans and Animals, in Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, ed. Marc Bekoff, pp. 519-523, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers. |
| 2010 | Finkel, Daniel, Paul Swartwout, and Richard Sosis The Socio-Religious Brain: A Developmental Model, Eds. R. Dunbar, C. Gamble, J. Gowlett. Proceedings of the British Academy 158: 287-312. |
| 2010 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis Religious Concepts as Necessary Components of the Adaptive Religious System, in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Philosophy: Evolution and Religion, ed. Ulrich Frey, pp. 37-59, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion: Five Misunderstandings of the Adaptationist Program. Journal of Cognition and Culture 9: 315-332. |
| 2009 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance, in The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, eds. Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenhovel, pp. 243-256, New York: Springer-Verlag Publishers. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard and Ulrich Schnabel The Adjusted Belief: What makes a religion successful? in The Pope in the Crossfire: Extrapolate back to Pius or the Council? (in German), ed. Til Galrev, pp. 165-167, Berlin: LIT Verlag. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard Why are Synagogue Services so Long? An Evolutionary Examination of Jewish Ritual Signals, in Judaism in Biological Perspective: Biblical Lore and Judaic Practices, ed. Rick Goldberg, pp. 199-233, Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. |
| 2008 | Sosis, Richard and Joseph Bulbulia Religion in Eden, In: The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, eds. J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, E. Harris, C. Genet, R. Genet, K. Wyman, pp. 15-19, Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press. |
| 2008 | Sosis, Richard Pigeons, Foxholes, and the Book of Psalms: Evolved Superstitious Responses to Cope with Stress and Uncertainty. In: The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, eds. J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, E. Harris, C. Genet, R. Genet, K. Wyman, pp. 103-9, Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press. |
| 2008 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta Militants and Martyrs: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Terrorism , In Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, eds. R. Sagarin and T. Taylor, pp. 105-24, Berkeley: University of California Press. |
| 2007 | Sosis, Richard Psalms for Safety: Magico-Religious Responses to Threats of Terror. Current Anthropology 48:903-911. |
| 2007 | Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Rituals of Humans and Animals, In: Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships, vol. 2, ed. Marc Bekoff, pp. 599-605, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers. |
| 2007 | Sosis, Richard, Howard Kress, and James Boster Scars for War: Evaluating Alternative Signaling Explanations for Cross-Cultural Variance in Ritual Costs. Evolution and Human Behavior 28:234-247. |
| 2007 | Ruffle, Bradley and Richard Sosis Does it Pay to Pray? Costly Ritual and Cooperation. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7:1-35 (Article 18). |
| 2006 | Sosis, Richard Religious Behaviors, Badges, and Bans: Signaling Theory and the Evolution of Religion. In: Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion, Volume 1: Evolution, Genes, and the Religious Brain, ed. Patrick McNamara, pp. 61-86, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. |
| 2006 | Ruffle, Bradley and Richard Sosis Cooperation and the In-Group-Out-Group Bias: A Field Test on Israeli Kibbutz Members and City Residents. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60:147-163. |
| 2005 | Sosis, Richard Ifaluk Atoll: An Ethnographic Account, in eHRAF World Cultures, ed. Carol Ember. New Haven, CT: HRAF. |
| 2005 | Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex Human Nature 16:323-359. |
| 2005 | Sosis, Richard Does Religion Promote Trust? The Role of Signaling, Reputation, and Punishment. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1:1-30 (Article 7). |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard and Bradley Ruffle Ideology, Religion, and the Evolution of Cooperation: Field Tests on Israeli Kibbutzim Research in Economic Anthropology 23:89-117. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual American Scientist 92:166-172. |
| 2003 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta Signaling, Solidarity, and the Sacred: The Evolution of Religious Behavior Evolutionary Anthropology 12:264-274 |
| 2003 | Sosis, Richard. and Bradley Ruffle Religious Ritual and Cooperation: Testing for a Relationship on Israeli Religious and Secular Kibbutzim Current Anthropology 44:713-722 |
| 2003 | Sosis, Richard Why aren't we all Hutterites? Costly signaling theoy and religious behavior Human Nature 14:91-127. |
| 2003 | Sosis, Richard and Eric Bressler Cooperation and commune longevity: A test of the costly signaling theory of religion. Cross-Cultural Research 37:211-239 |
| 2002 | Sosis, Richard Patch Choice Decisions on Ifaluk Atoll American Anthropologist 104:583-598. |
| 2001 | Sosis, Richard Sharing, consumption, and patch choice on Ifaluk Atoll Human Nature 12:221-245. |
| 2000 | Sosis, Richard Costly signaling and torch fishing on Ifaluk Atoll Evolution and Human Behavior 21:223-244. |
| 2000 | Sosis, Richard Religion and intra-group cooperation: preliminary results of a comparative analysis of utopian communities Cross-Cultural Research 34:70-87. |
| 2000 | Sosis, Richard The emergence and stability of cooperative fishing on Ifaluk Atoll In: Human Behavior and Adaptation: an Anthropological Perspective, eds. L. Cronk, N. Chagnon, and B. Irons, pp. 437-472, New York: Aldine de Gruyter. |
| 1998 | Sosis, Richard, Sharon Feldstein, and Kim Hill Bargaining theory and cooperative fishing participation on Ifaluk Atoll Human Nature 9:163-203. |
Edited Volumes:
| 2008 | Bulbulia, J., R. Sosis, C. Genet, R. Genet, E. Harris, K. Wyman, eds. The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press. |
| 2005 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta, eds. Special issue of Human Nature on Evolution of Religion |
Commentaries:
| Forthcoming | Sosis, Richard, Wesley Wildman, and Patrick McNamara On the Naturalness of Religion. Religion, Brain & Behavior 3. |
| 2013 | Purzycki, Benjamin G., and Richard Sosis Comment for Cooperation in Context: Public goods games and post-Soviet collectives in Kamchatka, Russia. Current Anthropology 54:166-7. |
| 2013 | Johnson, D., C. Deane-Drummond, A. Fuentes, L. Cronk, H. Lenfesty, J. Schloss, R. Sosis Darwin Day: Evolving Perspectives on God. Evolution: This View of Life. |
| 2013 | Cronk, L., C. Cunningham, C. Deane-Drummond, J.O. Henriksen, D. Johnson, E. Rogers, J. Schloss, R. Song, R. Sosis, A. Visala Religion in Evolutionary Perspective: Adaptive Faith. The Christian Century February 20: 34-39. |
| 2013 | Wildman, Wesley, Richard Sosis, and Patrick McNamara Bio-cultural approaches to social forms. Religion, Brain & Behavior 3: 1-2. |
| 2012 | Sosis, Richard The Evolution of Religion. Textbox in Lion Handbook on Science and Christianity, edited by R.J. Berry. |
| 2012 | Sosis, Richard, Wesley Wildman, and Patrick McNamara A New Format: The Book Symposium. Religion, Brain & Behavior 2: 181. |
| 2012 | Wildman, Wesley, Richard Sosis, and Patrick McNamara The Politics of Field Names. Religion, Brain & Behavior 2:101-104. |
| 2012 | Wildman, Wesley, Richard Sosis, and Patrick McNamara The Scientific Study of Atheism. Religion, Brain & Behavior 2:1-3. |
| 2012 | Swartwout, Paul, Benjamin G. Purzycki, and Richard Sosis Form and function in religious signaling under pathogen stress. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35: 32-33. |
| 2011 | Wildman, Wesley, Richard Sosis, and Patrick McNamara Reductionism in the Scientific Study of Religion. Religion, Brain & Behavior 1:3 169-172. |
| 2011 | McNamara, Patrick, Richard Sosis, and Wesley J. Wildman The Scientific Study of Religion and the Humanities. Religion, Brain & Behavior 1:2, 101-102 |
| 2011 | McNamara, Patrick, Richard Sosis, and Wesley J. Wildman Announcing a New Journal: Religion, Brain & Behavior. Religion, Brain & Behavior 1:1-4. |
| 2009 | Bulbulia, Joseph and Richard Sosis Ideology as Affordance. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:515-516. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard and John Shaver Comment for Attachment and Cooperation in Religious Groups: An Example of a Mechanism for Cultural Group Selection. Current Anthropology 50:775-776. |
| 2008 | Sosis, Richard and Paul Swartwout Demonstrating Group Selection: A Comment on Landa's "The Bioeconomics of Homogeneous Middleman Groups as Adaptive Units." Journal of Bioeconomics 10:297-301. |
| 2008 | Alcorta, Candace, Richard Sosis, and Daniel Finkel Ritual Harmony: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Music. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:576-577. |
| 2006 | Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Why Ritual Works: A Rejection of the By-Product Hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:613-614. |
| 2005 | Sosis, Richard Methods do Matter: Variation in Experimental Methodologies and Results. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28:834-835. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta Is Religion Adaptive? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27:749-750. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard Insights from Ifaluk: Food Sharing Among Cooperative Fishers Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27:568-569. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard and Bradley Ruffle On Ritual and Cooperation Current Anthropology 45:529-531. |
| 2002 | Sosis, Richard Comment for Rousseau's whale hunt? Coordination among big-game hunters. Current Anthropology: 43:553-554. |
| 1997 | Sosis, Richard and Kim Hill Comment for Delayed reciprocity and tolerated theft: the behavioral ecology of food-sharing strategies Current Anthropology 38:73-74. |
| 1997 | Sosis, Richard and Kim Hill Comment for Consumption and production: sharing and the social construction of use-value Current Anthropology 38:42-43. |
Book Reviews:
| 2008 | Purzycki, Benjamin, Paul Swartwout, and Richard Sosis Searching for Darwin: Metaphor, Collusion, and Natural Selection: Review of 'The Supernatural and Natural Selection' by Lyle Steadman and Craig Palmer. Evolutionary Psychology 6: 628-636. |
| 2007 | Sosis, Richard Breaking the Wrong Spell: Review of "Breaking the Spell" by Daniel Dennett. Free Inquiry 27:59-60. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard Preaching Morality and Metaphysics: Review of The Evolution of Morality and Religion by Donald M. Broom Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19:566-567. |
| 2003 | Sosis, Richard Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society by David Sloan Wilson Evolution and Human Behavior 24:137-143. |
| 2000 | Sosis, Richard Review of Ever Since Adam and Eve: the Evolution of Human Sexuality by Malcolm Potts and Roger Short Evolution and Human Behavior 21:291-294. |
