Anxiety and Ritual Behavior: Testing the Relationship between Anxiety and Predictable Behavioral Patterns

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F16%3A00090738" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/16:00090738 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
—
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
—

Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Anxiety and Ritual Behavior: Testing the Relationship between Anxiety and Predictable Behavioral Patterns
Original language description
Ethnographers have long noted that rituals often occur during times of stress and anxiety such as wars, gambling, or sports. Since Malinowski’s seminal work in Trobriand Islands, it has been also argued that rituals may help reduce anxiety. Furthermore, in a parallel line of research, several scholars noted that these rituals have ‘obvious features’ that can be observed across various cultures. Such characteristics include redundancy, repetitiveness, and rigidity on various behavioral levels. Assuming that ritual is a natural response to anxiogenic situations, it could be hypothesized that induced anxiety should trigger ritual-like behavior. However, to date, this hypothesis lacks substantial empirical support. Together with a team of co-authors, we designed a study that manipulated anxiety and used motion-capture technology to quantify various characteristics of hand movements. We found that induced anxiety led to an increase in repetitiveness and rigidity, but not redundancy.
Czech name
—
Czech description
—

Project
<a href="/en/project/EE2.3.20.0048" target="_blank" >EE2.3.20.0048: Laboratory for Experimental Research of Religion</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year
2016
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Similar results(10)