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1 results

  • Why ritual works: A rejection of the by-product hypothesis

  • Candace Storey Alcorta, Richard Sosis
  • Journal:
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences / Volume 29 / Issue 6 / December 2006
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    08 February 2007, pp. 613-614

  • We argue that ritual is not a by-product as Boyer & Lienard (B&L) claim, but rather an evolved adaptation for social communication that facilitates non-agonistic social interactions among non-kin. We review the neurophysiological effects of ritual and propose neural structures and networks beyond the cortical-striato-pallidal-thalamic circuit (CSPT) likely to be implicated in ritual. The adaptationist approach to ritual offers a more parsimonious model for understanding these effects as well as the findings B&L present.