Social Contagion of Religion
https://www.businessinsider.com/map-shows-how-religion-spread-around-the-world-2016-6
This video examines the spreading of the 5 major religions throughout the World – Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We can use the concept of social contagion to examine this process. Hinduism began spreading first, followed by Judaism in a distant area of the world. Buddhism began in a primarily Hindi area and spread very fast. Christianity begins spreading in Europe, and then in Africa and southern Asia, Islam beings spreading very fast. The main interactions between religions occurred between Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. These are the interactions that we will examine.
Hinduism was the primary religion in southern Asia. However Buddhism exploded in the same area. What could have led a group of people to adopt this religion that were already practicing Hinduism? Well Hinduism and Buddhism are pretty similar religions, so if we’re looking at this in terms of social contagion, the benefit of coordination for Buddhism must be much higher than the benefit of coordination for Hinduism in that area. If Buddhism began in an area of dense social connection, then it could make it easier to spread to areas with less dense social connection. This may be why Buddhism spread so fast through the Hindi area. Another interesting observation is that Islam and Hinduism interacted as well, however, people didn’t really switch over from either side. This must mean the benefit of cooperation is lower, and the two networks are both densely connected, so adoption of the new religion becomes much less likely.