The Essence of Social Groups: Ritual Increases Children’s Affiliation With In-Group Members

• In Event: 3-228 - The Essence of my Group and Yours: Using Research on Essentialism to Clarify Intergroup Processes

Integrative Statement

Social group cognition is a developmentally privileged process (Killen & Rutland, 2011). Young children are well prepared to become social group members (Diesendruck & Markson, 2011; Rhodes, 2012) and even view social categories as having a stable, unchanging psychological “essence” that distinguishes that group from other social categories (Gelman et al., 2007; Hirschfeld, 1996). What constitutes the essence of a group? Children require relatively strong cues to develop essentialist beliefs about social kinds (Rhodes & Mandalaywala, 2017). Four- to six-year-olds with essentialist beliefs about a novel social category are more likely to withhold resources from an out-group (Rhodes et al., 2018), suggesting that essentialism reinforces boundaries between groups and is incorporated into expectations of social reciprocity. Markers of group membership, such as language, could be used to identify group members and emphasize group boundaries. The current research examined another potential group identity marker—namely, ritual.

Rituals may create a sense of group “essence” by emphasizing boundaries between social categories. Indeed, rituals facilitate high fidelity cultural transmission by serving as group identity markers, demonstrating group commitment, facilitating cooperation with coalitions, and increasing cohesion (Legare & Watson-Jones, 2016). Recent developmental research documents frequently co-occurring features of ritual that have independent effects on imitative fidelity, a measure of affiliation (Clegg & Legare, 2016; Herrmann et al., 2013; Legare et al., 2015). Individuals who do not participate in shared rituals face the threat of ostracism from the group (Watson-Jones et al., 2016). Thus, children may conclude that rituals constitute part of the group’s “essence.”

This study examined the impact of ritual participation on children’s social group cognition and behavior (N=71, 4-11-year-olds). Ritual participation could contribute as a group identity marker to the salience of group boundaries, thus emphasizing group essentialism above and beyond group membership alone. A novel social group paradigm in an afterschool program tested the influence of a ritual versus control task on affiliation with in- versus out-group members, as well as out-group monitoring and showing in-group displays. Children were randomly assigned to a color group and participated in a social group activity in a ritual or control condition.

The data support that ritual participation increases in-group affiliation, out-group monitoring, and in-group displays. After accounting for attendance, there was a significant effect of condition on in-group affiliation, F(1, 68)=4.54, p=.037 (Figure 1). Overall, children had higher in-group affiliation composite scores in the ritual than control condition. Children spent more time looking at the out-group in the ritual than the control condition, β=4.04, t(48)=2.50, p=.017. Children spent more time displaying materials to in-group members in the ritual than the control condition, β=3.79, t(48)=2.24, p=.030.

The results provide insight into the early-developing sensitivity to group dynamics and the ways in which ritual participation serves to increase affiliation with group members, by serving as a group identity marker. We propose that humans are psychologically prepared to engage in ritual as a means of in-group affiliation, thereby creating and reinforcing boundaries between the in-group and the out-group, thus increasing the “essence” of the social group.

Authors

• Nicole J. Wen, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Aiyana K. Willard, Brunell University London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michaela Caughy, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cristine H Legare, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author