Center for Secure and Intelligent Critical Systems (CSICS) Publications
ORCID
0000-0003-4065-6146 (Gore)
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0327674
Publication Title
PLoS One
Volume
20
Issue
11
Pages
e0327674
Abstract
The relationship between religion, society, and individual behaviour has been a subject of extensive inquiry, drawing upon a rich collection of historical and contemporary perspectives. The scientific study of religion at the social level has often found its roots in the foundational work of Durkheim (Durkheim, 1912), who posited that religion serves as a catalyst for social order and the promotion of prosocial behaviour. At the same time, Malinowski’s observations regarding the connection between ritual and anxiety have led to a number of lines of inquiry that have come to extend to other aspects of religion. Yet, taken together, these two approaches create friction by simultaneously linking religion to low and high levels of environmental threats and anxiety. This becomes particularly relevant in discussions of secularisation in general and existential security in particular. This study embarks on a theoretical exploration of these approaches, connecting them through an agent-based computer simulation. By linking together some of the intricate mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of religion, prosociality, and anxiety, we aim to shed light on the conditions that give rise to highly religious societies and the subsequent decline in religiosity, with a view to the significance of central institutions that ensure cooperation without recourse to religion in this complex narrative.
Rights
© 2025 Puga-Gonzalez et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability
Article states: "The model to reproduce the results as well as the data can be found in: https://gitlab.norceresearch.no/cmss/rip-project/-/tree/main/Prosociality%20subproject/Model%20with%20Central%20Institutions/Central%20Institutions."
Original Publication Citation
Puga-Gonzalez, I., Shults, F. L., Gore, R., & Talmont-Kaminski, K. (2025). The rise and fall of religion: An agent-based model of secularisation, security and prosociality. PLoS One, 20(11), Article e0327674. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327674
Repository Citation
Puga-Gonzalez, I., Shults, F. L., Gore, R., & Talmont-Kaminski, K. (2025). The rise and fall of religion: An agent-based model of secularisation, security and prosociality. PLoS One, 20(11), Article e0327674. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327674
Additional simulation results
journal.pone.0327674.s002.docx (621 kB)
Full ODD + D protocol of the agent-based model.
Included in
Organization Development Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons