Dr. Ara Norenzayan is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. Much of his research and teaching document the thumbprints of global cultural diversity on the human mind. He has published widely on the origins of religion, the psychology of supernatural beliefs, and cultural evolution. Dr. Norenzayan is the author of Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Research interests include cultural and religious diversity; cultural evolution; cooperation and conflict; the psychology of metaphysical and supernatural beliefs; sacred values; human-nature interactions.

Dr. Norenzayan’s secondary research area is Cognitive Science.

Billet, M. I., Baimel, A., Sahakari, S. S., Schaller, M., & Norenzayan, A. (2023). Ecospirituality: The psychology of moral concern for nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 87, 102001. doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102001

White, C. J. M., Muthukrishna, M., & Norenzayan., A. (2021). Cultural similarity among co-religionists within and between countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118 (37): e2109650118.

Lang, M., Purzycki, B. G., Apicella, C. L., Atkinson, Q. D., Bolyanatz, A., Cohen, E., . . . Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2019). Moralizing gods, impartiality and religious parochialism across 15 societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286, 1-10. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0202

Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A., McNamara, R., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1.

Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Princeton University Press.

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61-83.

Norenzayan, A., & Shariff, A. F. (2008). The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science, 322, 58-62.

Norenzayan, A., & Heine, S. J. (2005). Psychological universals: What are they and how can we know? Psychological Bulletin, 135, 763-784.

For a full list of publications, visit Dr. Norenzayan’s website.

• Distinguished University Scholar, UBC (2023)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2020)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize (2017)
• APA Division 36 Psychology of Religion Sexton Mentoring Award (2017)
• Association for Psychological Science James McKeen Cattell Fund Sabbatical Fellowship (2014-2015)
• Association for Psychological Science Fellow (2014)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology Fellow (2011)
• Killam Faculty Research Prize (2008)
• Society for the Experimental Social Psychology Fellow (2006)
• Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies – Early Career Scholar (2002)