Paper short abstract:

I will discuss the role ritualized action has played in the development of human culture. Specifically, how the cognitive interpretation of ritualized actions may have facilitated the formation of groups and material culture, and led to 'ritual' itself.

Paper long abstract:

Ritualized actions are actions which are repetitive, redundant, formalized, stereotypic, and instrumentally inefficient. Naïve individuals observing such actions have difficulty in determining the causal relations [of the actions], as well as the underlying intention of the performer. These interpretive difficulties are referred to as 'causal opacity' and 'goal demotion'. Ritualized actions are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of 'ritual' more generally (which is regarded as having symbolic qualities held in common by a specific group).

Ritualized actions appear to drive predictable and evolutionarily relevant behaviours in observers. In both adults and children, the observation of such actions motivates individuals to copy what they observe (including the ritualized actions themselves). This phenomenon is referred to as 'over-imitation', and is underpin by both the ritual- and instrumental-stance - cognitive accounts describing the attributions observers make regarding ritualized behaviour. These theories in conjunction may provide an account for the early utility of ritualized action as culture was emerging in the Homo lineage - specifically, the formation of groups, the transmission of material culture, and the acquisition of group-specific norms and beliefs - and may have been co-opted into the larger, more symbolically rich, phenomenon of 'ritual'.

I propose to discuss these theoretical claims, and elaborate on the role they may have played in the emergence of ritual more generally.