New research on costly rituals among university fraternities

Have you ever heard about or actually underwent initiation rituals that are obligatory for membership in a college fraternity or sorority? You may be interested in a new study featuring LEVYNA! Famous for their forced drinking, beating, tattooing or other forms of hazing, college initiation rituals are often directly inspired by costly religious rituals. However, do they also positively affect in-group cooperation? We compared decisions in an economic trust game between members of US fraternities and members of university social clubs and classrooms, observing that members of both fraternities and social clubs trusted more to each other compared to classrooms. The lack of difference between fraternities and clubs suggests that costly rituals we often observe in religious ceremonies accrue larger benefits because they also involve deep commitment to the supernatural.

8 Mar 2018

21 Nov

CREDO project received funding from the Czech Science Foundation in the Junior Star program!

Martin Lang received the Czech National Foundation’s Junior Star grant with his project titled Computing Religious Devotion: How Reinforcing Supernatural Beliefs Affects Normative Models in the Mind.
14 Nov

Two LEVYNA graduates have been awarded for excellent study results

The vice-rector for Research and Doctoral Studies at Masaryk University has awarded two LEVYNA graduates - Dan Řezníček and Radim Chvaja with a price for excellent results during their Ph.D. studies.
17 Aug

Phases of the menstrual cycle have no effects on incentivized decision-making

In an incentivized controlled lab experiment published in the Journal of Economic Psychology, Miloš Fišar together with members of LEVYNA and other colleagues show that there are no systematic effects of ovulatory shift on salient behavioral outcomes like risk preferences, rule violation, and exploratory attitude.
7 Aug

Costly signals induce more trustworthiness when used in religious settings like pilgrimages

In an experimental study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Radim Chvaja, Martin Lang and colleagues show that religious *costly* signals are more effective in communicating trustworthiness to religious/secular receivers than secular signals.

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New research on costly rituals among university fraternities

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CREDO project received funding from the Czech Science Foundation in the Junior Star program!

Two LEVYNA graduates have been awarded for excellent study results

Phases of the menstrual cycle have no effects on incentivized decision-making

Costly signals induce more trustworthiness when used in religious settings like pilgrimages