One of the biggest difficulties that we have to deal with is
that most of the things that happen to us are utterly out of our control. Cultures have developed many strategies for
dealing with this fact. One of the most
fascinating of these strategies is the creation of rituals.
Obviously, religions have lots of rituals that involve
sequences of actions and objects. Enter
a Catholic church, for example, and there are stations for people to pray and
light candles. Handwritten notes may
also be included.
Rituals are not limited to religions, though. Baseball players have actions they go through
to prepare for an at-bat. Starting in
the on-deck circle, some players may repeat the same actions, swinging a
weighted bat in a particular pattern and stretching in the same way. As they enter the batter’s box, they may
continue with a pattern of clearing dirt and practice swings. All of these patterns are aimed to increase
hitting success.
Do people have intuitions about what makes a ritual
effective?
This question was addressed in a fascinating paper by
Cristine Legare and Andre Souza published in Cognition in 2012. They
started by exploring a particular cultural ritual in Brazil called a simpatia. Simpatias are formulas that people use to
help them solve problems ranging from illnesses to bad luck. For example, a formula might say
In a metal container, put the
leaves of a white rose. After that, set
fire to the leaves. Get the remaining
ash from the leaves and put it in a small plastic bag. Take the small plastic bag and leave it at a
crossroad. Repeat the procedure for
seven days in a row.
These ritual formulas are common in Brazil, though (as in
most cultural tools) not everyone believes in them. In one study, Legare and Souza made up
simpatias that varied in a nine different ways such as the number of steps that
had to be carried out, whether people had to eat something as a part of
it. Brazilians were read versions of
these simpatias and were asked how effective they thought they would be.
Three aspects of the simpatias seemed to have the biggest
influence on people’s beliefs about whether they worked. First, formulas with more steps were thought
to be more effective than those with fewer steps. Formulas that required steps to be repeated
were more effective than those that required no repetition. Finally, formulas that had to be performed at
a specific time (such as during the full moon) were thought to be more
effective than those that could be performed at any time.
Brazilians are not taught specifically about the construction
of simpatias, but it is possible that these beliefs reflect something specific
about Brazilian culture. To test this
possibility, Legare and Souza also tested a group of college students in the
United States. Because the simpatias
were unfamiliar to these students, overall they did not think that they would
be very effective. However, like the Brazilians,
the Americans thought that having repetitions and having many steps in the
procedure would make the simpatias more effective than having no repetitions
and few steps. Specificity of the time
of day did not affect judgments of American students significantly.
What is going on here?
People seem to have some causal beliefs about the way that
rituals work. Some amount of effort
seems to be required to make rituals effective.
More steps and repetition are both factors that increase effort. Perhaps that effort signals a degree of
commitment.
It is less clear why time specificity would matter, though
many religions require that specific prayers be said at particular times of the
day or even specific times of the year.
Time specificity also signals a particular type of commitment, because the
person performing the ritual has to wait for the right time.
These findings are interesting, though they raise a host of
new questions. For example, what role to
rituals play in helping people to reduce anxiety about things that cannot be
controlled? Do people performing rituals
end up behaving in ways that may bring about the desired outcomes?
