![]() ON THE PODCASTįebruary 22: If you’ve taken part in a religious service, have you ever stopped to think about how it all came to be? How did people become believers? Where did the rituals come from? And what purpose does it all serve? This week, we bring you a favorite 2018 episode with social psychologist Azim Shariff. “They allow groups to cohere around each other,” Shariff says. ![]() The ones that have been preserved exist because they serve a useful purpose. ![]() Yet other religious rituals have remained constant across the centuries. Over time, as our societies have grown and changed, some of our religious rituals have been replaced by other rule-enforcing structures, such as government institutions and the rule of law. “If you weren't a true believer, you wouldn't go through all that effort.” Shariff’s hypothesis is that these costly religious signals helped to create the structure that allowed early civilizations to grow and prosper. It’s a hard-to-fake signal,” Shariff says. “You are showing, in a costly way, indications that you're a believer. He has studied religious rituals such as fasting and long pilgrimages, and how they serve as a signal to fellow believers. Social psychologist Azim Shariff has looked at rituals in another context, examining their purpose for religious communities. These small, mundane activities often come with a much larger purpose - they offer a sense of control. Maybe it’s a daily walk in your neighborhood. Maybe it’s cracking a single hard-boiled egg at breakfast. Sound familiar? During the pandemic, you’ve probably relied on your own set of rituals. “Generally, the findings are consistent with the longstanding view that ritual buffers against uncertainty and anxiety,” the study concluded. Turns out, task performance was better when they performed the ritual, and the volunteers were also less anxious after doing so. They also measured the volunteers’ brain activity. In the study, researchers asked volunteers to perform a task after completing a ritual, and then to perform the same task without first completing the ritual.
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