Dr. Ara Norenzayan is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. His research and teaching explore 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; metaphysical and supernatural beliefs; sacred values; human-nature interactions.

Norenzayan, A. (2025). Religion. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, E. J. Finkel, & W. B. Mendes (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (6th ed.). Situational Press. doi.org/10.70400/WGPJ9715.

Billet, M. I., Baimel, A., Schaller, M., & Norenzayan, A. (2025). Ecospirituality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 34(2), 97-104. doi.org/10.1177/0963721424130432.

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.

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.

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)

Dr. Norenzayan is currently accepting graduate students for supervision.