3-155 - The ontogeny of ritual cognition

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Cultural conventions such as rituals are universal features of human behavior. New experimental research on the social function of ritual provides fresh insight into the relationship between this phenomenon and the evolution and ontogeny of social group cognition. This symposium will present new psychological accounts of the ontogeny of ritual cognition. Prior work examining ritual and group processes has focused on adult samples and computational modeling. This symposium reviews recent research examining the mechanisms by which children learn the rituals of their group and the cues children use to interpret the behavior of group members. The first paper explores children’s selective overimitation and third party intervention of an action sequence in varying social contexts and when varying costs are supplied. This provides insight into how children acquire and transmit novel conventional information. The second paper examines children’s overimitation of an action sequence as a flexible tool used to tune into and readily adopt ritualized actions. The third paper assesses children’s preference for socially inclusive and exclusive agents when learning social conventions. The fourth paper discusses the consequences of ritualistic activity on social interaction in groups and tests the influence of participation in a group ritual on in- and out-group biases. The intersection of these lines of inquiry promises to provide new avenues for theory and research on the evolution and ontogeny of social group cognition.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Cristine H. Legare, University of Texas at Austin

Individual Presentations

• Flexibility of high fidelity imitation and third-party enforcement of conventional actions - Presenting Author: Hannes Rakoczy, Universität Göttingen

• The perpetuation of ritualistic actions as revealed by young children’s transmission of normative behavior - Presenting Author: Mark Gregory Nielsen, University of Queensland; Rohan Kapitany, University of Queensland; Rosemary Elkins, University of Queensland

• Children’s sensitivity to the social group dynamics of inclusion and exclusion - Presenting Author: Lori Markson, Washington University; Hyesung Grace Hwang, Washington University in St Louis

• The effects of ritual on the development of social group cognition - Presenting Author: Cristine H. Legare, University of Texas at Austin; Nicole Wen, University of Texas at Austin