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Contextual features of problem-solving and social learning give rise to spurious associations, the raw materials for the evolution of rituals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2007
Abstract
If rituals persist in part because of their memory-taxing attributes, from whence do they arise? I suggest that magical practices form the core of rituals, and that many such practices derive from learned pseudo-causal associations. Spurious associations are likely to be acquired during problem-solving under conditions of ambiguity and danger, and are often a consequence of imitative social learning.
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