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Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms
Abstract
Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the cognitive and psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. Participants must recall their rituals well enough to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals must motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals the world over exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation (but not both) to enhance their recollection (the availability of literacy has little impact on this). But why do some rituals exploit the first of these variables while others exploit the second? McCauley and Lawson advance the ritual form hypothesis, arguing that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain why. Reviewing evidence from cognitive, developmental and social psychology and from cultural anthropology and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit.
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Cited by
Boyer, P., & Liénard, P. (2006) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x06009332 · Cited by 601
Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity
Seligman, A. B., Weller, R. P., Puett, M., & Simon, B. (2008) · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336009.001.0001 · Cited by 416
The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework
Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D., & Inzlicht, M. (2018) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868317734944 · Cited by 354
Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer
Schjoedt, U., Stødkilde-Jørgensen, H., Geertz, A. W., & Roepstorff, A. (2009) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsn050 · Cited by 305
SOSIS, R., KRESS, H., & BOSTER, J. (2007) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.02.007 · Cited by 276
Metadata
- Authors
- McCauley, R. N., & Lawson, E. T.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2002-08-15
- OpenAlex
- W1246371693
- Cited by
- 530
- References
- 96
- FWCI
- 28.01
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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