The Impact of Religion on Local Social Ecology

In the early 19th century, Hutterites and Mormons had prohibitions on sex. So this is just another example of how religion can powerfully motivate people to behave in particular ways. And so one of the things we've done research around the world on is looking at people's belief in powerful, moralizing God that affects their behavior towards strangers. People who believe more strongly in a powerful punishing God leads to people to be more fair in economic decisions where they actually pay a cost for these kinds of decisions.