When people are stressed or anxious they're more likely to engage in ritualistic behavior—and observers tend to assume the behaviors work
Cultural materials, including systems of religious belief, often certify rituals’ causal effectiveness.Why do we sometimes push elevator call buttons repeatedly?
When waiting in a tall building for an elevator to arrive, for which the illumination of the call button that you have pushed indicates that your request has registered, have you sometimes returned to the control panel and pushed that illuminated call button again — and, sometimes, again, and yet again? I confess to doing so a few times, either when I have been in a terrific hurry or when, for whatever reason, the elevator seemed inordinately slow.
On the basis of what are, by now, dozens of empirical studies, including many of his own, the cognitive scientist of religions, Dimitris Xygalatas, argues in his new book,that this is but one of innumerable examples of humans’penchant for performing rituals when they are experiencing anxiety or stress. Our experiences with elevators are not usually
. But when we are late for an important appointment or when they involve what we take to be excessive delays, they can provoke frustration and anxiety.when we sense diminished control over events. In response to such circumstances, humans tend to exhibit ritualized behaviors, from repeatedly pushing already-activated call buttons for elevators to performing rain dances. Xygalatas suggests that ritualization appears to “trigger intuitive biases related to causal reasoning.
Xygalatas and his colleagues had participants watch videos of college basketball players stepping up to the foul line and initiating foul shots. Crucially, the videos ended before the ball descended toward the hoop. In 10 of the videos, participants saw the players go through various pre-shot rituals . In the other 10 videos, participants saw no rituals performed before the shot. The 20 videos were presented in a randomized order to each participant.
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