Evolutionary and Cognitive Science of Religion

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Authors

LANG Martin

Year of publication 2018
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description The study of religions and similarly complex cultural phenomena was traditionally conducted by scholars in the humanities; however, in the past 30 years, the field of religious studies experienced an exponential growth of evolutionarily and cognitively oriented approaches to the study of religions. Due to its emphasis on interdisciplinarity, which is inherent in cognitive sciences, we can study religions as complex adaptive systems, investigating individual mechanisms of this system and their functional connections. In the current talk, I will focus mainly on the role of rituals in facilitating cooperation, presenting findings both from field and laboratory studies, which show how individual ritual mechanisms help build cohesive groups.
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