Author : Nicole Jee Wen
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis Examining the Ontogeny of Ritual Learning and Social Group Cognition by : Nicole Jee Wen
Download or read book Examining the Ontogeny of Ritual Learning and Social Group Cognition written by Nicole Jee Wen and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural conventions, such as rituals, are a psychologically understudied yet pervasive feature of human culture. Studying the emergence of rituals in childhood provides insight into the complex dynamics of social group cognition. My dissertation examines how children identify and acquire collective rituals to affiliate with social groups and how evaluations of ritual performance may differ across cultures. Though there is increasing evidence that children acquire ritual through the process of imitation, the underlying assumption is that they engage in this behavior as a means of affiliation with social groups. This assumption has not yet been empirically tested, so this dissertation examined the impact of ritual participation on children’s in-group affiliation (Wen, Herrmann, & Legare 2016) and how ritual participation serves to increase affiliation with group members and group leaders, thereby avoiding social exclusion from the group (Wen, Willard, Caughy, & Legare, in prep). The results provide insight into the early-developing preference for in-group members and are consistent with the proposal that rituals facilitate in-group cohesion. Given the propensity of rituals across cultures, this dissertation examined how evaluations of conformity to a ritual differs cross-culturally (Wen, Clegg, & Legare, 2017). This dissertation proposes that humans are psychologically prepared to engage in ritual as a means of in-group affiliation to prevent the threat of group ostracism. This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research has been designed to provide an innovative developmental and mixed-methodological approach to studying cultural learning.