%0 Journal Article %A Gokhale, Chaitanya S. %A Bulbulia, Joseph %A Frean, Marcus %+ Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Max Planck Society %T Collective narratives catalyse cooperation : %G eng %U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-2ADB-1 %R 10.1057/s41599-022-01095-7 %7 2022-03-16 %D 2022 %8 16.03.2022 %* Review method: peer-reviewed %X Humans invest in fantastic stories—mythologies. Recent evolutionary theories suggest that cultural selection may favour moralising stories that motivate prosocial behaviours. A key challenge is to explain the emergence of mythologies that lack explicit moral exemplars or directives. Here, we resolve this puzzle with an evolutionary model in which arbitrary mythologies transform a collection of egoistic individuals into a cooperative. We show how
these otherwise puzzling amoral, nonsensical, and fictional narratives act as exquisitely functional coordination devices and facilitate the emergence of trust and cooperativeness in both large and small populations. Especially, in small populations, reflecting earlier hunter- gatherers communities, relative to our contemporary community sizes, the model is robust to the cognitive costs in adopting fictions. %K social evolution; culture; narratives; beliefs; stag-hunt %J Humanities and Social Sciences Communications %O Humanities & Social Sciences Communications Palgrave Communications (formerly) Humanit Soc Sci Commun %V 9 %N 1 %] 85 %I Springer Nature ; Palgrave Macmillan %C London ; USA %@ 2055-10452662-9992