LEVYNA conducted field research in Mauritius
Dr. Eva Kundtová Klocová with her recently defended dissertation "Body in Ritual Space: Communicating Through Embedded Practices in Religious Ritual" was awarded third place in the Dean's Prize for Excellent Dissertations.
This award is announced annually as part of the Humanities Week. Dr. Kundtová Klocová capitalized on her long-term research on the role of physicality in religious ritual practice and its influence on the cognitive and affective part of religious life. Thus, this work represents an extremely valuable contribution to the embodied cognition research.
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.