Ge, Erhao;
(2025)
The behavioural ecology of costly religious practices.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Worldwide religious practices often require substantial investments of time, energy, and money, or pose significant risks. They have been argued to signal prosocial qualities or commitment to a group. Yet, few empirical studies have quantitatively examined how signal recipients perceive these displays and adjust their partner choices accordingly. And the behavioural ecology of the extremely costly religious practice of celibacy, wherein individuals commit to sexual abstinence, has not been investigated anywhere in the world. This thesis aims to examine how signal receivers evaluate the reputational standings of their peers and form social relationships based on their peers' religious engagement. I also explore the role of religious celibacy in reducing competition among sons for parental resources and how this practice influences the inclusive fitness interests of other family members. Chapters 3 and 4 investigate the evolutionary implications of religious celibacy using socio-demographic data from 530 households across 21 natural villages in a Tibetan agropastoralist Buddhist community in China. I show that having a son join a monastery is associated with greater wealth for monk brothers, which implies that this may be a parental strategy to alleviate sibling competition for family resources, by examining sibling configurations and the correlation between family wealth and monastic affiliation. The reproductive success of families with a monastic member is enhanced, with brothers of monks having more living offspring, and fathers of monks don’t having decreased number of living grandchildren. Chapters 5 and 6 examine the association between religious practices, reputation evaluation, and the formation of social relationships in an indigenous Tibetan agricultural village. Participation in distant pilgrimages versus routine religious acts has different influences on perceived prosocial qualities. These different kinds of religious practices influence the establishment of supportive peer relationships and show gender difference in network rewards.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The behavioural ecology of costly religious practices |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205000 |
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