Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut
 

Publications

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

Forthcoming Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis On Supernatural Minds, Their Attributed Contents, and Cross-Cultural Patterns of Variation, in Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature, ed. Ulrich Frey, Springer.
Forthcoming Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis Religious Concepts as Necessary Components of the Adaptive Religious System: Bridging the Cognitive and Behavioral Gap with an Evolutionary Socioecology, in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Philosophy: Evolution and Religion, ed. Ulrich Frey.
Forthcoming Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Signals and Rituals of Humans and Animals, in Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, ed. Marc Bekoff, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers.
Forthcoming Sosis, Richard Ifaluk Atoll: An Ethnographic Account In Culture Conservancy, edited by Carol Ember.
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 Daniel Finkel, 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.
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 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 Bulbulia, Joseph and Richard Sosis Ideology as Affordance. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
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.