Why Faith Communities Might Be Our Best Hope for Fighting Climate Change

Research shows religion primes cooperation.

As it turns out, the faith community may have a marked advantage when it comes to dealing with global warming. According to University of British Columbia social psychologist and author Ara Norenzayan, religion primes cooperation. In his work, Norenzayan has found religious societies to be more cooperative than non-religious societies — particularly where a group’s survival is threatened.

“Participation in religion seems to make people more likely to suppress self-interest in favor of group norms,” Norenzayan told me. He believes religion may have underwritten the growth of large societies by encouraging cooperation and preventing the exploitation of scarce resources, like water.

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