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Prosociality and religion: History and experimentation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2016

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi*
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel. benny@psy.haifa.ac.il http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/psy/index.php/en/faculty?id=112
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Abstract

Norenzayan et al. are praised for choosing to deal with significant questions in the understanding of religion. They are then criticized for refusing to define religion and for relying on problematic theoretical concepts. The authors discuss Abrahamic religions as the best-known prosocial religions, but the evidence shows that the case does not fit their conceptual framework. Finally, an extension of the authors’ ideas about the meaning of priming effects is proposed.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e4
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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