Ritual and Cognition

Bibliographic Data

ID22366807
AuthorsColleen Kavanagh (0000-0001-7545-8137, University of Oxford, corresponding author), Christopher Kavanagh
Year2018
Pages1-7
Publication date2018-09-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeOTHER
VenueThe International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1686
OpenAlexW3009429010
ISBN9781118924396
LanguageEN
References cited10

Research into the mental processes that are involved with both the performance and the observance of rituals has a long history but it was not until the 1990s, with the resurgence of evolutionary and cognitive approaches to examining culture, that this developed into an active field of research. The distinctive feature of cognitive approaches to examining ritual is that they try to address how ritual performances interact and are shaped by the features of the human mind. The dominant topics of research in cognition and ritual have explored how rituals are linked to early‐developing overimitative tendencies; preexisting cognitive systems for avoiding hazards, encoding salient memories, and parsing action sequences; and how participation in harsh or traumatic rituals functions as a form of costly signaling of commitment to a group and encourages prosocial behavior from observers and participants

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Prosocial behavior · Salient · Computer Science · Cultural Differences and Values · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Neuroscience · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence

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