Journal
EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR
Volume 39, Issue 3, Pages 343-348Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.02.006
Keywords
Ritual; Causal opacity; Goal demotion; Over-imitation; Social learning, cultural transmission
Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP140101410]
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Rituals are a ubiquitous feature of human behavior, yet we know little about the cognitive mechanisms that enable children to recognize them and respond accordingly. In this study, 3 to 6 year old children living in Bushman communities in South Africa were shown a sequence of causally irrelevant actions that differed in the extent to which goal demotion was a feature. The children consistently replicated the causally irrelevant actions but when such actions were also fully goal demoted they were reproduced at significantly higher rates. These findings highlight how causal opacity and goal demotion work in tandem to demarcate actions as being ritualistic, and specifically, how goal demotion uniquely influences the reproduction of ritualistic actions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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