Costly signaling theory of religion has been proposed to explain the evolutionary adaptiveness of religion in general and, specifically, its prosocial effects, including the relative longevity of religious communes vis-à-vis their secular counterparts. This article focuses on two crucial aspects of this relationship: the features and functions of signals and the mechanism through which signaling translates into enhanced prosociality. It identifies some of the key factors of the costliness of behavior and distinguishes between religious and secular signals, arguing that only the latter serve to broadcast commitment. The role of religious signals, instead, might be to stimulate the supernatural watching (“Under His Eye”) mechanism: enhancing supernatural sanctions beliefs and providing a setting in which implicit prosocial responses are triggered. The relative absence of this mechanism in secular communities may explain their shorter life spans. A link is thus established between the costly signaling and supernatural punishment theories of religious behavior.

中文翻译：

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“在他眼皮底下”的代价高昂的承诺：重新定义宗教的代价高昂的信号理论

已经提出了宗教的昂贵信号理论来解释一般宗教的进化适应性，特别是它的亲社会影响，包括宗教公社相对于世俗公社的相对长寿。本文重点关注这种关系的两个关键方面：信号的特征和功能以及信号转化为增强的亲社会性的机制。它确定了行为成本高昂的一些关键因素，并区分了宗教信号和世俗信号，认为只有后者才能传播承诺。相反，宗教信号的作用可能是刺激超自然观察（“Under His Eye”）机制：增强超自然制裁信念并提供触发隐性亲社会反应的环境。世俗社区中这种机制的相对缺乏可能解释了他们较短的寿命。因此，在昂贵的信号和宗教行为的超自然惩罚理论之间建立了联系。