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11 - Ritual and Religion as Social Technologies of Cooperation

from Section 3 - How Social Coordination and Cooperation are Achieved

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Christopher Kavanagh ,
Jonathan Jong  and
Harvey Whitehouse
Edited by
Laurence J. Kirmayer ,
Carol M. Worthman ,
Shinobu Kitayama ,
Robert Lemelson  and
Constance A. Cummings
Laurence J. Kirmayer
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Carol M. Worthman
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Shinobu Kitayama
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Robert Lemelson
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Constance A. Cummings
Affiliation:
The Foundation for Psychocultural Research
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Summary

In this chapter, we review recent research from a variety of disciplines to outline the role that collective rituals and religious beliefs play in fostering and maintaining cooperation. We consider ritual and religion as interactive but separate social technologies. First, with rituals we discuss their importance to social learning processes, examine their ability to bond groups through synchrony and shared emotion, and address their role as costly, persuasive signals of commitment. Second, we explore "religion" in the form of beliefs about supernatural agents and look at how such beliefs can contribute to – or hinder – cooperation. We evaluate long-standing claims that religion is a harmful social virus and contrasting recent theories that argue belief in "Big Gods" and "supernatural punishment" are crucial to enabling the cooperation necessary for large-scale societies.

Keywords

ritualreligioncooperationDurkheimcognitive science of religioncultural evolutionreligious belief
Type
Chapter
Information
Culture, Mind, and Brain
Emerging Concepts, Models, and Applications
 , pp. 325 - 362
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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