Ara Norenzayan, University of British Columbia

Research

Read how they describe their research on their University of British Columbia profile.

Latest papers

Cultural diversity of religion across 117 countries.
Nature communications · 2026 · senior author
Methodological concerns underlying a lack of evidence for cultural heterogeneity in the replication of psychological effects.
Communications psychology · 2024
Gods are watching and so what? Moralistic supernatural punishment across 15 cultures.
Evolutionary human sciences · 2023

All 35 publications

Latest funding

Religion, Spirituality, and Moral Concern for the Environment
SSHRC · 2019 · Principal investigator
$35,548
Religion, Spirituality, and Moral Concern for the Environment
SSHRC · 2019 · Principal investigator
$140,096
The cognitive origins of religious belief and disbelief
SSHRC · 2014 · Principal investigator
$77,656

All 7 grants and awards

35 publications.

01

Cultural diversity of religion across 117 countries.

Bentzen JS, Knudsen ASB, Sperling LL, Norenzayan A

Nature communications2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-67671-y PMID: 41526353

02

Methodological concerns underlying a lack of evidence for cultural heterogeneity in the replication of psychological effects.

Schimmelpfennig R, Spicer R, White CJM, Gervais W, Norenzayan A, Heine S, Henrich J, Muthukrishna M

Communications psychology2024

DOI: 10.1038/s44271-024-00135-z PMID: 39379734

03

Gods are watching and so what? Moralistic supernatural punishment across 15 cultures.

Bendixen T, Lightner AD, Apicella C, Atkinson Q, Bolyanatz A, Cohen E, Handley C, Henrich J, Klocová EK, Lesorogol C, Mathew S, McNamara RA, Moya C, Norenzayan A, Placek C, Soler M, Vardy T, Weigel J, Willard AK, Xygalatas D, Lang M, Purzycki BG

Evolutionary human sciences2023

DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.15 PMID: 37587943

04

Global supernatural beliefs.

Billet MI, Norenzayan A

Nature human behaviour2023Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01568-y PMID: 37012367

05

Cultural similarity among coreligionists within and between countries.

White CJM, Muthukrishna M, Norenzayan A

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021Senior author

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109650118 PMID: 34493675

06

How cultural learning and cognitive biases shape religious beliefs.

White CJ, Baimel A, Norenzayan A

Current opinion in psychology2021Senior author

DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.07.033 PMID: 32896727

07

Treatment of missing data determined conclusions regarding moralizing gods.

Beheim B, Atkinson QD, Bulbulia J, Gervais W, Gray RD, Henrich J, Lang M, Monroe MW, Muthukrishna M, Norenzayan A, Purzycki BG, Shariff A, Slingerland E, Spicer R, Willard AK

Nature2021

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03655-4 PMID: 34234331

08

How strongly do moral character inferences predict forecasts of the future? Testing the moderating roles of transgressor age, implicit personality theories, and belief in karma.

White CJM, Norenzayan A, Schaller M

PloS one2020

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244144 PMID: 33347513

09

The Content and Correlates of Belief in Karma Across Cultures.

White CJM, Norenzayan A, Schaller M

Personality & social psychology bulletin2019

DOI: 10.1177/0146167218808502 PMID: 30554555

10

Moralizing gods, impartiality and religious parochialism across 15 societies.

Lang M, Purzycki BG, Apicella CL, Atkinson QD, Bolyanatz A, Cohen E, Handley C, Kundtová Klocová E, Lesorogol C, Mathew S, McNamara RA, Moya C, Placek CD, Soler M, Vardy T, Weigel JL, Willard AK, Xygalatas D, Norenzayan A, Henrich J

Proceedings. Biological sciences2019

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0202 PMID: 30836871

Religion, Spirituality, and Moral Concern for the Environment

Principal investigatorSSHRC2019Insight Grants

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: moral psychology; culture; religion; environment

$35,548

Religion, Spirituality, and Moral Concern for the Environment

Principal investigatorSSHRC2019Insight Grants

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: moral psychology; culture; religion; environment

$140,096

The cognitive origins of religious belief and disbelief

Principal investigatorSSHRC2014Insight Grants

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: religion; atheism; belief; cognition; culture

$77,656

The evolution of religion and morality

Co-investigatorSSHRC2011Partnership Grants

Keywords: religion; morality; evolution of religion; cognitive science of religion; prosociality; cultural evolution; gene-culture coevolution

$2,999,280

Religious prosociality and reputation management

Principal investigatorSSHRC2010Standard Research Grants program

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: religion; prosocial behaviour; economic games; reputation maintenance

$75,500

God concepts and prosocial behaviour

Principal investigatorSSHRC2007Standard Research Grants

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: religion; prosocial behaviour; culture; God concepts; experiments

$95,500

Mortality awareness and culturally widespread beliefs in supernatural agents

Principal investigatorSSHRC2004Standard Research Grants

Principal investigators: Norenzayan, Ara

Keywords: religion; supernatural belief; culture; mortality

$105,000

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Department of Philosophy
Other

Co-authors at University of British Columbia, colored by department. Thicker lines mean more shared papers; select anyone to open their profile and their own map.

Mark Schaller

Faculty

2 shared papers, latest 2020

Edward Slingerland

Department of Philosophy

2 shared papers, latest 2021

Azim Shariff

Faculty

1 shared papers, latest 2021

Steven Heine

Faculty

1 shared papers, latest 2024

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their SSHRC grant from 2019

Subject: Prospective PhD student Dear Professor Norenzayan, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "Cultural diversity of religion across 117 countries." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your SSHRC-funded project "Religion, Spirituality, and Moral Concern for the Environment" (2019), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]