Richard Sosis
Journal Articles
Sosis, R., & Bulbulia, J. (In Press). The Behavioral Ecology of Religion: The Benefits and Costs of One Evolutionary Approach. Religion.
Bulbulia, J., & Sosis, R. (In Press). Signaling Theory and the Evolution of Religious Cooperation. Religion.
Purzycki, B., D. Finkel, J. Shaver, N. Wales, A. Cohen, and R. Sosis (In Press) What does God Know? Supernatural Agents' Perceived Access to Socially Strategic and Nonstrategic Information. Cognitive Science.
Wildman, W. and R. Sosis (2011) Stability of Groups with Costly Beliefs and Practices. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 14, 6.
Sosis, R. & Handwerker, W. P. (2011) Psalms and coping with uncertainty: Israeli women's responses to the 2006 Lebanon war. American Anthropologist 113, 40-55.
Sosis, R. (2011) Why sacred lands are not indivisible: the cognitive foundations of sacralizing land. Journal of Terrorism Research 2, 17-44.
Sosis, R. (2009). The adaptationist-byproduct debate on the evolution of religion: five misunderstandings of the adaptationist program. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 9, 315-332.
Sosis, R., Kress, H. & Boster, J. (2007) Scars for war: evaluating alternative signaling explanations for cross-cultural variance in ritual costs. Evolution and Human Behavior 28, 234-247.
Sosis, R. (2007) Psalms for safety: Magico-religious responses to threats of terror. Current Anthropology 48, 903-911.
Ruffle, B. & Sosis., R. (2007) Does it pay to pray? Costly ritual and cooperation. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7, 1-35.
Sosis, R. (2005) Does Religion Promote Trust? The Role of Signaling, Reputation, and Punishment. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1, 1-30 (article 7).
Alcorta, C. S. & Sosis, R. (2005) Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex. Human Nature 16, 323-359.
Sosis, R. (2004) The adaptive value of religious ritual. American Scientist 92, 166-172.
Sosis, R. & Ruffle, B. (2004) Ideology, Religion, and the Evolution of Cooperation: Field Tests on Israeli Kibbutzim. Research in Economic Anthropology 23, 89-117.
Sosis, R. (2003) Why aren't we all Hutterites? Costly signaling theory and religious behavior. Human Nature 14, 91-127.
Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. (2003) Signaling, Solidarity, and the Sacred: The Evolution of Religious Behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 12, 264-274.
Sosis, R. & Bressler, E. R. (2003) Cooperation and commune longevity: A test of the costly signaling theory of religion. Cross-Cultural Research 37, 211-239.
Sosis, R. (2000) Religion and Intragroup Cooperation: Preliminary results of a comparative analysis of utopian communities. Cross-Cultural Research 34, 71-88.
Edited Books and Special Issues
Bulbulia, J., Sosis, R., Genet, C., Genet, R., Harris, E. & Wyman, K. (ed.) (2008) The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.
Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. (ed.) (2005) Special issue of Human Nature on the evolution of religion.
Book Chapters
Sosis, R., & Kiper, J. (In Press). Sacred versus Secular Values: Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion and Religious Freedom. In T. S. Shah & T. Farr (eds.), Homo Religiosus: Reflections on Humankind's Persistent Religiosity.
Alcorta, C. S., & Sosis, R. (In Press). Ritual, Religion, and Violence: an Evolutionary Perspective. In M. Kitts, M. Juergensmeyer & M. Jerryson (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sosis, R., Phillips, E. J., & Alcorta, C. S. (In Press). Sacrifice and Sacred Values: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religious Terrorism. In T. Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War. New York: Oxford University Press.
Purzycki, B. & Sosis, R. (2011) Our Gods: Variation in Supernatural Minds, in Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature, ed. U. Frey, C. Stormer & K.P. Willfuhr, pp. 77- 93, New York: Springer.
Alcorta, C. & Sosis, R. (2010) 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.
Purzycki, B. & Sosis, R. (2010) 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.
Sosis, R. & Schnabel, U. (2009) 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.
Purzycki, B. & Sosis, R. (2009) 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.
Finkel, D., Swartwout, P. & Sosis, R. (2010) The Socio-Religious Brain: A Developmental Model. In Proceedings of the British Academy (eds. R. Dunbar, C. Gamble, J. Gowlett), 158: 287-312.
Sosis, R. (2009) Why are Synagogue Services so Long? An Evolutionary Examination of Jewish Ritual Signals. In Judaism in Biological Perspective: Biblical Lore and Judaic Practices (ed. R. Goldberg), pp. 199-233. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. (2008) Militants and martyrs: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Terrorism. In Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World (ed. R. Sagarin & T. Taylor), pp. 105-124. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Sosis, R. (2008) 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 (ed. J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, C. Genet, R. Genet, E. Harris & K. Wyman), pp. 15-19. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.
Sosis, R. & Bulbulia, J. (2008) Religion in Eden. In The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques (ed. J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, C. Genet, R. Genet, E. Harris & K. Wyman), pp. 15-19. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.
Alcorta, C. & Sosis, R. (2007) Rituals of Humans and Animals. In Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships, vol. 2 (ed. M. Bekoff), pp. 599-605. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers.
Sosis, R. (2006) 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, vol. 1: Evolution, Genes, and the Religious Brain (ed. P. McNamara), pp. 61-86. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Book Reviews
Purzycki, B., Swartwout, P. & Sosis, R. (2008) 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.
Sosis, R. (2007) Breaking the Wrong Spell: Review of "Breaking the Spell" by Daniel Dennett. Free Inquiry 27, 59-60.
Sosis, R. (2004) Preaching Morality and Metaphysics: Review of "The Evolution of Morality and Religion" by Donald M. Broom. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 566-567.
Sosis, R. (2003) "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society" by David Sloan Wilson (book review). Evolution and Human Behaviour 24, 137-143.
Commentaries
McNamara, P., Sosis, R., & Wildman, W. (In Press). The Scientific Study of Religion and the Humanities. Religion, Brain & Behavior.
Swartwout, P., B.G. Purzycki, and R. Sosis Form and function in religious signaling under pathogen stress. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Commentary).
McNamara, P., Sosis, R. & Wildman, W. (2011) Announcing a New Journal. Religion, Brain & Behavior 1, 1-4.
Bulbulia, J. and Sosis, R. (2009) Ideology as Affordance. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 32:515-516.
Sosis, R. and Shaver, J. (2009) Comment for Attachment and Cooperation in Religious Groups: An Example of a Mechanism for Cultural Group Selection. Current Anthropology 50: 775-776.
Sosis, R. & Swartwout, P. (2008) Demonstrating Group Selection: A Comment on Landa's "The Bioeconomics of Homogeneous Middleman Groups as Adaptive Units. Journal of Bioeconomics 10, 297-301.
Alcorta, C., Sosis, R. & Finkel, D. (2008) Ritual Harmony: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Music. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 31, 576-577.
Alcorta, C. & Sosis, R. (2006) Why Ritual Works: A Rejection of the By-Product Hypothesis. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 29, 613-614.
Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. (2004) Is Religion Adaptive? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27, 749-750.
Sosis, R. & Ruffle, B. (2004) On Ritual and Cooperation. Current Anthropology 45, 529-531.