- Authors:
- DOI:
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00960
- Abstract:
- Collective rituals are biologically ancient and culturally pervasive, yet few studies have quantified their effects on participants. We assessed two plausible models from qualitative anthropology: ritual empathy predicts affective convergence among all ritual participants irrespective of ritual role; rite-of-passage predicts emotional differences, specifically that ritual initiates will express relatively negative valence when compared with non-initiates. To evaluate model predictions, images of participants in a Spanish fire-walking ritual were extracted from video footage and assessed by nine Spanish raters for arousal and valence. Consistent with rite-of-passage predictions, we found that arousal jointly increased for all participants but that valence differed by ritual role: fire-walkers exhibited increasingly positive arousal and increasingly negative valence when compared with passengers. This result offers the first quantified evidence for rite of passage dynamics within a highly arousing collective ritual. Methodologically, we show that surprisingly simple and non-invasive data structures (rated video images) may be combined with methods from evolutionary ecology (Bayesian Generalized Linear Mixed Effects models) to clarify poorly understood dimensions of the human condition.
- Type:
- Journal article
- Language:
- English
- Published in:
- Frontiers in Psychology, 2013, Vol 4
- Keywords:
- Evolution; Fire; Markov chain Monte Carlo; Multi-level; Religion; Ritual
- Main Research Area:
- Science/technology
- Publication Status:
- Published
- Review type:
- Peer Review
- Submission year:
- 2014
- Scientific Level:
- Scientific
- ID:
- 258671669
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