More than a century ago, Bronislaw Malinowski claimed that ritual behavior decreases anxiety induced by the prospect of uncontrollable threats. Martin Lang and Jan Krátký (together with Dimitris Xygalatas) tested this notion experimentally in a Marathi community on Mauritius and recently published their results in a monothematic issue “Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours“ of the prestigious journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Using a public speech paradigm, they found out that participants dealing with stress via habitual ritual performed in a local temple showed lower levels of perceived and physiological anxiety than participants that were relaxing in a non-religious location. Authors also discuss future directions that the evolutionary research on ritual could further develop.
You can find the article here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0431
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.
