department of anthropology, university of california, davis
research
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Davis
PhD, Harvard University, 2020
ScB, Brown University, 2012
Shamanism, witchcraft, origin myths, property rights, sharing norms, lullabies, dance music, and gods have appeared in human societies everywhere, from nomadic hunter-gatherer bands to complex, industrial, mega-urbanized states. My research program aims to explain why societies develop complex, recurrent traditions such as these. Focusing on canonical puzzles from law, religion, and art, I ask three questions:
Q1. How do certain traditions compare across societies? Are there procedures of justice that follow conflict across human societies? Do religions around the world, extending from those of Australian hunter-gatherers to renewal Pentecostalism, share basic beliefs or practices? What are the universal features of music? To answer these questions, I conduct comparative work, such as by collecting and analyzing cross-cultural datasets (e.g., Singh, 2018; Singh, 2021; Mehr & Singh et al., 2018; Mehr, Singh et al., 2019).
Q2. What are the processes by which these near-universals develop? From Q1, we might conclude that human societies recurrently exhibit some practice like shamanism or laws against killing. My research investigates why. How do human psychology, sociality, and cultural evolution interact to sculpt these shared traditions? To answer this question, I integrate insights from across the behavioral sciences, developing accounts to explain the patterns in practices and beliefs (e.g., shamanism: Singh, 2018; witchcraft and sorcery: Singh, 2021; rules: Singh et al., 2017).,
Q3. How well do these accounts explain cultural realities? I study these social and culture practices through fieldwork with the Mentawai people of Siberut Island, Indonesia. The field studies serve two purposes. First, they aim to answer as-of-yet unanswered questions about the design of cultural practices. For instance, in a recent study of a punitive crocodile spirit, I challenged the common view that the 'small gods' of animist traditions lack moral concerns (Singh et al., 2021). Second, field studies provide a venue to test explanations for why near-universals develop. For example, an ongoing examination of prohibitions on shamans tests among several hypotheses for why religious self-denial exists, including one proposed in my theory of shamanism (Singh & Henrich, 2020).
With Luke Glowacki and Samuel Mehr, I co-direct the Natural History of Song, an investigation of the universal features of human song.
Singh, M., Wrangham, R. W., and Glowacki, L. 2017. Self-interest and the design of rules. Human Nature 28:457-480. [pdf]
Singh, M., Glowacki, L., and Wrangham, R. W. 2016. Self-interested agents create, modify, and maintain group-functional culture. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39:e52. [Commentary on 'Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation.'] [pdf]
C. C. Ioannou, Singh, M., and Couzin, I. D. 2015. Potential leaders trade off goal-oriented and socially oriented behavior in mobile animal groups. The American Naturalist 186:284-293. [pdf]
Singh, M. and Boomsma, J. J. 2015. Policing and punishment across the domains of social evolution. Oikos 124:971-82. [Editor's choice] [pdf]
in preparation
Singh, M. and Hoffman, M. Commitment and impersonation: A reputation-based theory of principled behavior. [pre-print pdf]
Yurdum, L., Singh, M., Glowacki, L., Vardy, T., Atksinson, Q., Hilton, C., Sauter, D., Krasnow, M., and Mehr, S. A. Cultural invariance in musical communication. [pre-print pdf]
Mehr, S. A., Singh, M., Knox, D., Ketter, D. M., Pickens-Jones, D., Atwood, S., Lucas, C., Egner, A., Jacoby, N., Hopkins, E. J., Howard, R. M., Hartshorne, J. K., Jennings, M. V., Simson, J., Bainbridge, C. M., Pinker, S., O'Donnell, T. J., Krasnow, M. M., and Glowacki, L. 2019. Universality and diversity in human song. Science 366:eaxx0868. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2018. Why is there shamanism? Developing the cultural evolutionary theory and addressing alternative accounts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41:e92. [Response to commentaries on 'The cultural evolution of shamanism.'] [pdf]
Singh, M. 2018. The cultural evolution of shamanism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41:e66. [pdf]
Mehr, S. A.*, Singh, M.*, York, H., L. Glowacki, and Krasnow, M. M. 2018. Form and function in human song. Current Biology 28:356-368. [pdf]
in press/in print
* denotes equal contribution
Fitouchi, L. and Singh, M. In press. Punitive justice serves to restore reciprocal cooperation in three small-scale societies. Evolution and Human Behavior. [pre-print pdf]
Singh, M. and Mehr, S. A. 2023. Universality, domain-specificity and development of psychological responses to music. Nature Reviews Psychology 2:333–346. [pdf]
Nayak, S. M., Singh, M., Yaden, D. B., and Griffiths, R. 2023. Belief changes associated with psychedelic use. Journal of Psychopharmacology 37:80–92. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2022. Subjective selection and the evolution of complex culture. Evolutionary Anthropology 31:266–280. [pdf]
Hilton, C. B., Moser, C., Bertolo, M., Lee-Rubin, H., Amir, D., Bainbridge, C. M., Simson, J., Knox, D., Glowacki, L., Alemu, E., Galbarczyk, A., Jasienska, G., Ross, C. T., Neff, M. B., Martin, A., Cirelli, L. K., Trehub, S. E., Song, J., Kim, M., Schachner, A., Vardy, T. A., Atkinson, Q. D., Salenius, A., Andelin, J., Antfolk, J., Madhivanan, P., Siddaiah, A., Placek, C. D., Salali, G. D., Keestra, S., Singh, M., Collins, S. A., Patton, J. Q., Scaff, C., Stieglitz, J., Ccari Cutipa, S., Moya, C., Sagar, R. R., Anyawire, M., Mabulla, A., Wood, B. M., Krasnow, M. M., and Mehr, S. A. 2022. Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures. Nature Human Behaviour 6:1545–1556. [pdf]
Singh, M. and Glowacki, L. 2022. Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model. Evolution and Human Behavior 43:418–431. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2022. Cognitive and evolutionary foundations of superstition and paranoia. Current Anthropology. [Response to reply by Planer and Sterelny] [pdf]
Singh, M. and Garfield, Z. H. 2022. Evidence of third-party mediation but not punishment in Mentawai justice. Nature Human Behaviour 6:930–940. [pdf]
Fitouchi, L. and Singh, M. 2022. Supernatural punishment beliefs as cognitively compelling tools of social control. Current Opinion in Psychology 44:252-257. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2021. The sympathetic plot, its psychological origins, and implications for the evolution of fiction. Emotion Review 13:183-198. [pdf]
Singh, M., Acerbi, A., Caldwell, C., Danchin, É., Molleman, L., Scott-Phillips, T., Tamariz, M., Van der Berg, P., van Leuwen, E., and Derex, M. 2021. Beyond social learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:20200050. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2021. Magic, explanations, and evil: The origins and design of witches and sorcerers. Current Anthropology 62:2-29. [pdf]
Bertolo, M., Singh, M., and Mehr, S. A. 2021. Sound-induced motion in chimpanzees does not imply shared ancestry for music or dance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118:e2015664118. [Letter in response to 'Rhythmic swaying induced by sound in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)'] [pdf]
Singh, M., Kaptchuk, T. J., and Henrich, J. 2021. Small gods, rituals, and cooperation: The Mentawai water spirit Sikameinan. Evolution and Human Behavior 42:61-72. [pdf]
Singh, M. and Henrich, J. 2020. Why do religious leaders observe costly prohibitions? Examining taboos on Mentawai shamans. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2:e32. [pdf]
Singh, M. 2020. People don't divine by flipping coins. Current Anthropology 39:e52. [Commentary on 'Why divination? Evolved psychology and strategic interaction in the production of truth.']