Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality

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Authors	XYGALATAS Dimitrios MITKIDIS Panagiotis FISCHER Ronald REDDISH Paul SKEWES Joshua GEERTZ Armin W. ROEPSTORFF Andreas BULBULIA Joseph
Year of publication	2013
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Psychological Science
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Arts
Citation
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797612472910
Field	Philosophy and religion
Keywords	ritual; extreme rituals; prosociality; prosocial effect; group identity; ritual intensity
Description	Extreme rituals entail excessive costs without apparent benefits, which raises an evolutionary cost problem (Irons, 2001). It is argued that such intense rituals enhance social cohesion and promote cooperative behaviors (Atran & Henrich, 2010; Durkheim, 1912). However, direct evidence for the relation between ritual intensity and prosociality is lacking. Using economic measures of generosity and contextually relevant indicators of group identity in a real-world setting, we evaluated pro- social effects from naturally occurring rituals that varied in severity.
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