Bringing Ritual to Mind
Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms
Seiten
2002
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
9780521016292 (ISBN)
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
9780521016292 (ISBN)
Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the psychological foundations of religious rituals. Religious rituals exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation (but not both) to enhance recollection. McCauley and Lawson use a wide range of evidence to argue that the explanation lies in participants' cognitive representations of ritual form.
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 and from cultural anthropology and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit.
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 and from cultural anthropology and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit.
ROBERT N. MCCAULEY is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Emory College Center for Teaching and Curriculum, Emory University. E. THOMAS LAWSON is Professor of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University and executive editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture.
1. Cognitive constraints on religious ritual form: a theory of participants' competence with religious ritual systems; 2. Ritual and memory: frequency and flashbulbs; 3. Two hypotheses concerning religious ritual and emotional stimulation; 4. Assessing the two hypotheses; 5. General profiles of religious ritual systems: the emerging cognitive science of religion.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 15.8.2002 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 5 Tables, unspecified; 3 Line drawings, unspecified |
| Verlagsort | Cambridge |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 228 mm |
| Gewicht | 405 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-13 | 9780521016292 / 9780521016292 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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