Precaution systems and ritualized behavior

Boyer, Pascal; Liénard, Pierre

doi:10.1017/s0140525x06009575

Cited by 56 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The most recent psychological conceptualizations of rituals have contrasted them with routine actions, such as habits, that are practical or instrumental (e.g., Norton & Gino, 2014;Ouellette & Wood, 1998). In contrast, ritualized actions include non-functional behaviors that are not causally linked to the stated goal of the ritual (Boyer & Liénard, 2006;Legare & Souza, 2012;Lienard & Boyer, 2006;Rappaport, 1999). This distinction between behaviors that are instrumental and goal-directed (e.g., routines) from those that include non-instrumental elements (e.g., rituals) are critical for understanding the difference between pre-performance rituals and mere pre-performance routines.…”

Section: Defining Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, performing the rigid, repetitive actions of a ritual may satisfy a fundamental need for order. Boyer and Liénard (2006) theorized that ritualized actions are an evolutionary vestige of a vigilance detection system. Consistent with this, the entropy model of uncertainty posits that anxiety motivates organisms to return to familiar low-entropy states in order to regain a sense of control (Hirsch, Mar, & Peterson, 2012;Lang et al, 2015).…”

Section: Rituals Reduce Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

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RETRACTED: Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety

Brooks

Schroeder

Risen

et al. 2016

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

121

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a b s t r a c tFrom public speaking to first dates, people frequently experience performance anxiety. And when experienced immediately before or during performance, anxiety harms performance. Across a series of experiments, we explore the efficacy of a common strategy that people employ to cope with performance-induced anxiety: rituals. We define a ritual as a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often characterized by formality and repetition that lacks direct instrumental purpose. Using different instantiations of rituals and measures of anxiety (both physiological and self-report), we find that enacting rituals improves performance in public and private performance domains by decreasing anxiety. Belief that a specific series of behaviors constitute a ritual is a critical ingredient to reduce anxiety and improve performance: engaging in behaviors described as a ''ritual" improved performance more than engaging in the same behaviors described as ''random behaviors."

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Section: Defining Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rituals Reduce Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

RETRACTED: Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety

Brooks

Schroeder

Risen

et al. 2016

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

121

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Definitions of ritual abound in the social sciences (Bell, 1997;Boyer & Liénard, 2006;Humphrey & Laidlaw, 1994), and differ widely depending on their focus (e.g., Bell, 1992Bell, , 1997Collins, 2004;Turner, 1969), resulting in incompatible theoretical approaches (Beattie, 1966). Here, we put forth a definition that we believe is compatible with most prior empirical research and theorizing, but that has the additional advantage of addressing the individual psychology of ritual.…”

Section: The Defining Features Of Ritualmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Unlike other behaviors, rituals are typically chunked into units of segmented action, which then become sequenced, patterned, and repeated in fixed or bounded ways (Boyer & Liénard, 2006;Nielbo & Sørensen, 2011. In contrast to habits or routines, which may change each time they are performed, rituals tend to be invariable in their performance (Rappaport, 1999;Smith & Stewart, 2011).…”

Section: The Defining Features Of Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By having (a) segmented, rigid, formal, and repetitive actions (physical); and (b) symbolic value (psychological), rituals also tend to be goal demoted (Boyer & Liénard, 2006). That is, rituals either lack overt instrumental purpose, or their constitutive actions themselves are not immediately causally linked to the stated goal of the ritual (Herrmann, Legare, Harris, & Whitehouse, 2013;Legare & Souza, 2012;Rappaport, 1999).…”

Section: The Defining Features Of Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The psychology of rituals: An integrative review and process-based framework

Hobson¹,

Schroeder²,

Risen³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, the current paper provides an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work from social psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience. Our framework focuses on three primary regulatory functions of rituals: regulation of (1) emotions, (2) performance goal states, and (3) social connection. We examine the possible mechanisms underlying each function by considering the bottom-up processes that emerge from the physical features of rituals and top-down processes that emerge from the psychological meaning of rituals. Our framework, by appreciating the value of psychological theory, generates novel predictions and enriches our understanding of ritual and human behavior more broadly.

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Ritual and Cognition

Kavanagh

2018

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology

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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.

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Precaution systems and ritualized behavior

Cited by 56 publications

References 17 publications

RETRACTED: Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety

RETRACTED: Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety

The psychology of rituals: An integrative review and process-based framework

Ritual and Cognition

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