Pascal Boyer: Washington University Department of Psychology

Ritualized behavior is found in children’s typical development, as well as in the pathology of OCD and in cultural ceremonies. Pierrre Lienard and I proposed elsewhere a neurocognitive model of ritualized behavior in human development and pathology, as based on the activation of a specific hazard-precaution system specialized in the detection of and response to potential threats. I argue that certain features of collective rituals‹by conveying information about potential danger and presenting appropriate reaction as a sequence of rigidly described precautionary measures‹probably activate this neurocognitive system. This makes some collective ritual sequences highly attention-demanding and intuitively compelling and contributes to their transmission from place to place or generation to generation.