An evolutionary approach to the study of pilgrimages
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Pilgrimages are universal across cultures and unique to humankind. Since pilgrimages lack the obvious function for the traveler, it poses a puzzle for researchers. To solve the puzzle, I am developing the costly signaling theory application on pilgrimages to show that pilgrimages could serve as costly and therefore reliable signals of human commitment to cooperate. I also argue that anybody who is cognitively, technically and symbolically equipped can be a potential receiver of the signal and I speculate about possible mechanisms of the signals. Finally, I report results from the preliminary research with Czech pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. In religious pilgrims, the positive association was found between distance walked and the amount of money they were willing to donate to the charity. |
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