Attending relgious services regularly helps a person be recognised as hard working, wise and morally grounded.
Ostentatious displays of religion carried out to gain this recognition may however have the opposite effect if perceived as self-aggrandising, a new study shows.
Regular worship and public ritual acts are both rewarded by recognition for having a good work ethic and for giving good advice, according to the study by Eleanor Power, published in Evolution and Human Behaviour.
She found it was not only dramatic acts of religious devotion that achieved recognition, but also the "relatively more subtle act" of regular worship.
"In fact, the results presented here show that regular worship is often associated with greater recognition," she writes.
Power, of Stanford University's anthropology department, studied Christians and Hindus in two villages in South India where residents carry out religious practices such as firewalking as well as the "more subtle but consistent" act of worshipping at a church or temple each week.
"In sum, people who worship regularly and undertake greater and costlier ritual acts are not only seen as more devout, but are also associated with a suite of traits that are prosocial, other-focused, and morally grounded," writes Power. "They are more likely to be seen as having a good work ethic, giving good advice, being generous, and having good character."
Public rituals ranged from making a small offering at a temple, carrying a scalding firepot in a procession, long periods of fasting and abstention and other acts that "involve enduring serious pain, and risk bodily harm". These included fasting, piercing bodies with hooks and spears, and even suspending themselves from a crane using hooks in their backs.
Such acts lead to a personal reputation for physical strength.
"A small number of Hindu residents periodically become possessed, their bodies contorting wildly, beyond their control and consciousness as a deity suddenly 'comes' to them," she reports.
"In comparison, worshipping at a church or temple may seem to be a rather trivial commitment of time, but the cumulative investment over the course of months and years is substantial."
Villagers recognise that dramatic acts can help to build one's reputation and renown, she says, but if rituals are seen as being done in order to get that return, these acts will be viewed as evidence of "self-pride and boastfulness".
She says the fact that regular worship is not eye-catching and crowd-drawing actually serves as its guarantor.
"That people continue to worship week upon month upon year, despite its relative subtlety as a signal, makes regular worship a seemingly unassailable marker of devotion."
Power concludes that while it is perhaps not surprising that those who perform more religious action are seen as more religious, "it is somewhat more so that other character traits are also imputed into those who invest more in the religious life of the village."
A spokesman for Santa Fe Institute, where Power is now working as Omidyar Postdoctoral Fellow, said: "The study shows that costly displays of religious action result in substantial reputational gains. In the discussion, Power suggests that if those acts are perceived as aggrandising, in some cases they may not help one's reputational standing.
"The important point is that even while a few dramatic acts might be perceived as being done for aggrandising ends, the analyses in the paper show that overall, costly public religious action, like fire walking and piercing, do result in many of the same reputational benefits as regular worship. Both get you improved standing, and in fact it is the combination of the two that really results in reputational gains. These are reinforcing, not conflicting, and many residents in the village Power studied, Hindus and Christians, undertake both."
