Across cultures, religious communities that expect more from their members thrive (or religious communities in which members face greater consequences for leaving). Meanwhile, lenient religious groups struggle to maintain membership. Why is this? Wouldn't you assume most people would want to join the easiest religion? Recent research suggests that strict religions are sociologically and psychologically predisposed to succeed.

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Sources and Bibliography:

Connor Wood, "Ritual Well-Being: Toward a Social Signaling Model of Religion and Mental Health," Religion, Brain, and Behavior, 7:3, 223-243, 2017.

L. Iannaccone. “Why Strict churches are Strong,” American Journal of Sociology, 99 (5), 1180-1211.

W. Irons (2011). “Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment. In Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment, 290-309.

D.M. Kelley (1972). Why Conservative Churches are Growing. New York: Harper and Brown

Montserrat Soler, “Costly Signaling, ritual and cooperation: Evidence from Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian Religion,” Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 33, Issue 4, July 2012, 346-356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbeha... / https://www.montclair.edu/profilepage...

Sosis and Ruffle (2004). Ideology, religion, and the evolution of cooperation: Field Experiments on Israeli Kibbutzim. Research in Economic Anthropology, 23, 89-117.

W.J. Wildman and Sosis (2011). “Stability Groups with Costly Beliefs and Practices.” Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14 (3) 1-25. http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/14/3/6....

Dimitris Xygatlatas, “Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality,” Psychological Science, 24(8), 1602-1605, 2013.
http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.b...

Vox article: “Mainline Churches are emptying. The political effects could be huge”: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017...

Definition of Strict Church Theory: http://www.thearda.com/rrh/bestpracti...

Connor Wood blog post: “Why is Liberal Protestantism Dying Anyway?": http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceo...

Another Connor Wood blog post: “Religion Builds Self Control and Excludes Outsiders Simultaneously," http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceo...


UCC Stats: http://uccfiles.com/pdf/Summary-Stats...

Computer modeling: http://www.bu.edu/today/2017/what-com...

PC USA stats: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2...

PCA stats: http://www.pcaac.org/resources/pca-st...

Amish stats: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/0...

LDS stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chu...

Picture Attribution:

Amish buggy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Buggy and Car:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Candomblé Priestesses:
Antonio Milena, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candomb...

Candomblé: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...