We develop a cultural evolutionary theory of the origins of prosocial religions and apply it to resolve two puzzles in human psychology and cultural history: (1) the rise of large-scale cooperation among strangers and, simultaneously, (2) the spread of prosocial religions in the last 10-12 millennia. We argue that these two developments were importantly linked and mutually energizing. We explain how a package of culturally evolved religious beliefs and practices characterized by increasingly potent, moralizing, supernatural agents, credible displays of faith, and other psychologically active elements conducive to social solidarity promoted high fertility rates and large-scale cooperation with co-religionists, often contributing to success in intergroup competition and conflict. In turn, prosocial religious beliefs and practices spread and aggregated as these successful groups expanded, or were copied by less successful groups. This synthesis is grounded in the idea that although religious beliefs and practices originally arose as nonadaptive by-products of innate cognitive functions, particular cultural variants were then selected for their prosocial effects in a long-term, cultural evolutionary process. This framework (1) reconciles key aspects of the adaptationist and by-product approaches to the origins of religion, (2) explains a variety of empirical observations that have not received adequate attention, and (3) generates novel predictions. Converging lines of evidence drawn from diverse disciplines provide empirical support while at the same time encouraging new research directions and opening up new questions for exploration and debate.

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The cultural evolution of prosocial religions.

This paper analyses of some changing aspects of learning and ‘cultures of learning’ in China: these are related to meeting the needs of Chinese learners studying in higher education in the UK. We use the term ‘cultures of learning’ to draw attention to the socio-cultural aspects of key practices, expectations and interpretations of learning and the term is understood to include diversity of practices both at individual and group levels. We use the notion of changing practices in a double sense: firstly, practices in learning at school and university levels are changing in China and hence the cultures of learning that are likely to influence students' pre-departure experiences include an aspect of dynamic change. Secondly, Chinese students in the UK change their practices in many respects as they learn in, and from, British academic cultures. The paper also delineates some long-standing features of learning in the Confucian heritage and summarises recent developments in the Chinese national curriculum for ...

Changing Practices in Chinese Cultures of Learning.

The purpose of this paper is (1) to identify critical issues in the current literature on ethical leadership — i.e., the conceptual vagueness of the construct itself and the focus on a Western-based perspective; and (2) to address these issues and recent calls for more collaboration between normative and empirical-descriptive inquiry of ethical phenomena by developing an interdisciplinary integrative approach to ethical leadership. Based on the analysis of similarities between Western and Eastern moral philosophy and ethics principles of the world religions, the present approach identifies four essential normative reference points of ethical leadership — the four central ethical orientations: (1) humane orientation, (2) justice orientation, (3) responsibility and sustainability orientation, and (4) moderation orientation. Research propositions on predictors and consequences of leader expressions of the four central orientations are offered. Real cases of ethical leadership choices, derived from in-depth interviews with international leaders, illustrate how the central orientations play out in managerial practice.

Re-thinking ethical leadership: An interdisciplinary integrative approach

Confucianism is the central philosophic background for much of the culture in East Asia (EA), particularly for understanding family and social context. The purpose of this article is to examine more fully Confucianism as a conceptual framework for understanding EA family processes and health practices. Confucianism stresses the traditional boundaries of ethical responsibility and the ideal of good human life as a whole. Embedded within Confucian values are five principal relationships, through which each person defines a sense of identity, duty, and responsibility. Current studies of EA families that consider Confucianism as a theoretical base focus almost exclusively on filial piety and collectivism. Focusing only on these two aspects prevents scholars from exploring more complex interpretations of EA family life. A broader inclusion of multiple concepts from Confucianism can provide guidance in exploring the complex and multidimensional aspects of EA family life and allow for broader articulation of family processes.

Revisiting Confucianism as a conceptual framework for Asian family study.

Religion in Chinese Society

Taking into account the long history and wide range of Confucian Studies, this book introduces Confucianism - initiated in China by Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) - primarily as a philosophical and religious tradition. It pays attention to Confucianism in both the West and the East, focussing on the tradition's doctrines, schools, rituals, sacred places and terminology, but also stressing the adaptations, transformations and new thinking taking place in modern times. Xinzhong Yao presents Confucianism as a tradition with many dimensions and as an ancient tradition with contemporary appeal. This gives the reader a richer and clearer view of how Confucianism functioned in the past and of what it means in the present. A Chinese scholar based in the West, he draws together the many strands of Confucianism in a style accessible to students, teachers, and general readers interested in one of the world's major religious traditions.

An introduction to Confucianism

This book is unique in that it provides data resulting from a four year study of religious experiencing in China today which could radically transform the understanding of the role of religion in contemporary China. The suppression of religion by communist authorities in the latter part of the 20th century is well known but, far less well-known, is the underlying resurgence of religious life within the most populous nation on earth. The research is focused on the Han Chinese who form over 90 percent of the population of mainland China and is undertaken on ten sites across the country resulting in data from 3,000 detailed questionnaires. The importance of this project is that it is ground-breaking research in an almost wholly new context. No previous research on this scale has taken place before and indeed until recently no such research would have been permitted in a state which since the Communist Revolution of 1949 has been deeply suspicious of any manifestation of religious feeling, and in which a wholly atheistic educational system has prevailed.

Religious experience in contemporary China

The search for effective ways to enable different religious systems to co-exist peacefully in mutual complementarity has emerged as a necessary condition for economic development, social progress, human prosperity and even survival. The combination of diversity and interdependence in the religious world calls for comparative studies of religion. This book details the inherent problems of such studies. The underlying idea presented is that there are similarities, as well as differences between Confucianism as humanistic tradition and Christianity as a theocentric religion, and that these similarities and differences are mutually involved and delicately related with each other: while agape can be translated in English as "love", it is in fact more than love, in that it defines the relationship between Christians and their God, and between Christians and their neighbours; while jen in Chinese is not the translation of "love", it is in fact essentially love, both ethical and religious, in that it defines the relationship between Confucians and their transcendantal pursuit, between Confucians and their ideal, and between Confucians and their fellow human beings.

Confucianism and Christianity: A Comparative Study of Jen and Agape

[1] Increasing anthropogenic atmospheric deposition of nutrients, trace metals, and toxic substances to oceans may synergistically enhance or inhibit some specific phytoplankton growth, subsequently modulating primary productivity. In this study, onboard incubation experiments were performed in the southern Yellow Sea in the spring of 2011 to explore the responses of microphytoplankton, nanophytoplankton, and picophytoplankton to various combinations of added substances. The water samples used were collected at a lower nutrient concentration zone with an N/P ratio of 10, where satellite data showed a bloom on the eleventh day after collection. The bloom also occurred in the control experiment on the ninth to eleventh days. We simulated atmospheric input by artificially adding Asian dust, rainwater, nitrogen (dissolved inorganic N), phosphorus (P), and iron (Fe). The addition of a large amount of Asian dust increased both the maximum concentration of chlorophyll a (Chl a) and the conversion efficiency index of N into Chl a (CEI) by ~40% and ~30%, respectively, compared to the control, indicative of promoting growth of the phytoplankton. However, no promotion effect on phytoplankton growth was observed when the addition of Asian dust was reduced to10% of the original amount. The addition of rainwater increased the maximum concentration of Chl a by ~40% but decreased the CEI by ~40%, indicating inhibition coexisting with promotion of some phytoplankton species. Moreover, the size-fractioned Chl a data showed that the inhibition effect pertained to nanophytoplankton and occurred following the bloom (after the eighth day).

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2013JG002329

Responses of chlorophyll a to added nutrients, Asian dust, and rainwater in an oligotrophic zone of the Yellow Sea: Implications for promotion and inhibition effects in an incubation experiment

1. What is Chinese religion? 2. Religion and Zongjiao 3. Religion in history 4. Religion as culture 5. Religion in family contexts 6. Religion and the state 7. Beliefs, deities and sacrifices 8. Religion as ritual systems 9. Sacred space and sacred time 10. Divining the future 11. Conclusion: Religion as the way of life.

Xinzhong Yao

Papers

An introduction to Confucianism

Religious experience in contemporary China

Confucianism and Christianity: A Comparative Study of Jen and Agape

Responses of chlorophyll a to added nutrients, Asian dust, and rainwater in an oligotrophic zone of the Yellow Sea: Implications for promotion and inhibition effects in an incubation experiment

Chinese Religion: A Contextual Approach