Will M. Gervais

6.8k total citations · 3 hit papers
45 papers, 3.3k citations indexed

About

Will M. Gervais is a scholar working on Sociology and Political Science, Social Psychology and Health. According to data from OpenAlex, Will M. Gervais has authored 45 papers receiving a total of 3.3k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 31 papers in Sociology and Political Science, 23 papers in Social Psychology and 18 papers in Health. Recurrent topics in Will M. Gervais's work include Cultural Differences and Values (18 papers), Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (18 papers) and Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (15 papers). Will M. Gervais is often cited by papers focused on Cultural Differences and Values (18 papers), Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (18 papers) and Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (15 papers). Will M. Gervais collaborates with scholars based in United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Will M. Gervais's co-authors include Ara Norenzayan, Azim Shariff, Joseph Henrich, Aiyana K. Willard, Evan C. Carter, Felix D. Schönbrodt, Joseph Hilgard, Maxine B. Najle, Edward Slingerland and Rita Anne McNamara and has published in prestigious journals such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In The Last Decade

Will M. Gervais

43 papers receiving 3.1k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

The cultural evolution of prosocial religions

2014 453 citations Ara Norenzayan, Azim Shariff et al. Behavioral and Brain Sciences profile →
Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief

2012 365 citations Will M. Gervais, Ara Norenzayan profile →
Correcting for Bias in Psychology: A Comparison of Meta-Analytic Methods

2019 345 citations Will M. Gervais et al. profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Will M. Gervais United States	27	1.9k	1.4k	1.2k	964	418	45	3.3k
Joseph Bulbulia New Zealand	33	2.2k 1.1×	2.0k 1.5×	986 0.8×	929 1.0×	623 1.5×	129	4.5k
Dimitris Xygalatas United States	28	1.4k 0.7×	1.3k 1.0×	561 0.5×	621 0.6×	480 1.1×	75	2.6k
Aiyana K. Willard United Kingdom	20	1.4k 0.7×	924 0.7×	732 0.6×	489 0.5×	293 0.7×	43	2.2k
Jesse M. Bering United States	26	1.2k 0.6×	1.1k 0.8×	617 0.5×	686 0.7×	416 1.0×	65	2.4k
Roland Imhoff Germany	31	3.5k 1.8×	1.1k 0.8×	678 0.6×	1.5k 1.6×	436 1.0×	124	4.7k
Justin L. Barrett United States	31	2.5k 1.3×	1.8k 1.3×	2.7k 2.3×	753 0.8×	395 0.9×	84	5.2k
Sam A. Hardy United States	32	1.5k 0.8×	1.5k 1.1×	717 0.6×	471 0.5×	304 0.7×	91	3.8k
Ian McGregor Canada	31	1.8k 0.9×	2.6k 1.9×	511 0.4×	875 0.9×	600 1.4×	45	4.0k
Bob Altemeyer Canada	16	2.7k 1.4×	1.7k 1.2×	1.0k 0.9×	395 0.4×	149 0.4×	21	3.5k
Claudia Dalbert Germany	32	2.2k 1.1×	2.4k 1.8×	417 0.4×	670 0.7×	370 0.9×	91	4.3k

Countries citing papers authored by Will M. Gervais

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Will M. Gervais's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Will M. Gervais with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Will M. Gervais more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Will M. Gervais

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Will M. Gervais. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Will M. Gervais. The network helps show where Will M. Gervais may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Will M. Gervais

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Will M. Gervais. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Will M. Gervais based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Will M. Gervais. Will M. Gervais is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

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20 of 20 papers shown

Gervais, Will M., Ryan McKay, Jazmin L. Brown‐Iannuzzi, et al.. (2025). Belief in belief: Even atheists in secular countries show intuitive preferences favoring religious belief. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 122(13). e2404720122–e2404720122. 1 indexed citations

McKay, Ryan, Will M. Gervais, & Colin J. Davis. (2023). ‘So Help Me God’? Does oath swearing in courtroom scenarios impact trial outcomes?. British Journal of Psychology. 114(4). 991–1014.

Gervais, Will M., Maxine B. Najle, & Nava Caluori. (2021). The Origins of Religious Disbelief: A Dual Inheritance Approach. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 12(7). 1369–1379. 26 indexed citations

Gervais, Will M.. (2021). Practical Methodological Reform Needs Good Theory. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 16(4). 827–843. 22 indexed citations

Gervais, Will M., Michiel van Elk, Dimitris Xygalatas, et al.. (2018). Analytic atheism: A cross-culturally weak and fickle phenomenon?. Judgment and Decision Making. 13(3). 268–274. 57 indexed citations

Schiavone, Sarah R. & Will M. Gervais. (2017). Atheists. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 11(12). 6 indexed citations

Brown‐Iannuzzi, Jazmin L., et al.. (2017). Atheist horns and religious halos: Mental representations of atheists and theists.. Journal of Experimental Psychology General. 147(2). 292–297. 26 indexed citations

Harreveld, Frenk van, et al.. (2017). Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do. PLoS ONE. 12(8). e0182764–e0182764. 47 indexed citations

Murray, Damian R., Nicholas Kerry, & Will M. Gervais. (2017). On Disease and Deontology: Multiple Tests of the Influence of Disease Threat on Moral Vigilance. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 10(1). 44–52. 37 indexed citations

10.

Gervais, Will M.. (2015). Override the controversy: Analytic thinking predicts endorsement of evolution. Cognition. 142. 312–321. 80 indexed citations

11.

Norenzayan, Ara, Azim Shariff, Will M. Gervais, et al.. (2014). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 39. e1–e1. 453 indexed citations breakdown →

12.

Gervais, Will M.. (2014). Good for God? Religious motivation reduces perceived responsibility for and morality of good deeds.. Journal of Experimental Psychology General. 143(4). 1616–1626. 13 indexed citations

13.

Gervais, Will M.. (2014). Everything Is Permitted? People Intuitively Judge Immorality as Representative of Atheists. PLoS ONE. 9(4). e92302–e92302. 77 indexed citations

14.

Gervais, Will M.. (2013). In Godlessness We Distrust: Using Social Psychology to Solve the Puzzle of Anti‐atheist Prejudice. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 7(6). 366–377. 68 indexed citations

15.

Gervais, Will M.. (2013). Perceiving Minds and Gods. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 8(4). 380–394. 63 indexed citations

16.

Norenzayan, Ara & Will M. Gervais. (2012). The origins of religious disbelief. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 17(1). 20–25. 159 indexed citations

17.

Norenzayan, Ara, Will M. Gervais, & Kali H. Trzesniewski. (2012). Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God. PLoS ONE. 7(5). e36880–e36880. 157 indexed citations

18.

Gervais, Will M., Azim Shariff, & Ara Norenzayan. (2011). Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 101(6). 1189–1206. 264 indexed citations

19.

Schaller, Mark, et al.. (2010). Mere Visual Perception of Other People’s Disease Symptoms Facilitates a More Aggressive Immune Response. Psychological Science. 21(5). 649–652. 152 indexed citations

20.

Gervais, Will M., et al.. (2010). Implied body action directs spatial attention. Attention Perception & Psychophysics. 72(6). 1437–1443. 30 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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