Bringing Ritual to Mind
Subtitle: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: September 2, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 250
ISBN-13: 9780521016292
Subjects: Psychology; Religious rites & ceremonies; Social & cultural anthropology; Psychology, Religious; Christianity - Ritual & Practice; Social Science; Archaeology / Anthropology; Sociology; Ritual; Anthropology - General; Christian Rituals & Practice - General; Ritual--Psychology; Social Science / Anthropology / General; Cognition and culture
First sentence: Some rituals captivate the imagination.
Description: "Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the cognitive and psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. Participants must recall their rituals well enough to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals must motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals the world over exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation (but not both) to enhance their recollection; the availability of literacy has little impact on this. But why do some rituals exploit the first of these variables while others exploit the second? McCauley and Lawson advance the ritual form hypothesis, arguing that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain why. Reviewing evidence from cognitive, developmental and social psychology, cultural anthropology, and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit."--BOOK JACKET.