Around the world, people engage in practices that involve self-inflicted pain and apparently wasted resources, such as various religious rituals. Previous research suggests that these practices reliably communicate commitment to group cooperative norms and that benefits from increasing cooperation offset the cost of these practices.
Using a Public Goods Game, the research team shows that cooperative participants are willing to waste part of their monetary endowment to signal their intentions, and as a result, contribute more to a common group pool. By understanding factors affecting the reliability of cooperative communication, this study may help us appreciate the cooperative peculiarity of humankind.
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In a new study published in Human Nature, LEVYNA was part of a team lead by A.K. Willard, studying how witchcraft beliefs affect social norms and behaviors. Specifically, researchers investigated whether witchcraft is regarded to be motivated by envy and how this notion influences community interactions. The findings show that, while witchcraft accusations were common, they were mostly directed at persons suspected of acting out of envy.
In an ethnographic survey-based study published in the journal Religions, D. Xygalatas and P. Maňo looked at variation in motivations for ritual practice and how it relates to the socioeconomic status of respondents. The findings indicate that whereas people of lower socioeconomic standing address more immediate concerns related to material security and safety in their ritual practices, people at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum tend to focus on the fulfillment of spiritual, social, or cultural needs.
