Online Now: Cognitive computations underlying ritual performance and persistence
From petitionary prayers to pilgrimages, rituals are found in every known culture. Yet, the reason for their persistence is a matter of active debate. Some studies portray rituals as attempts to affect uncertain outcomes, whereas others emphasize their role in facilitating social cohesion. We review the cognitive processes underlying both perspectives and draw on advances in reinforcement learning to integrate them. Specifically, ritual participation is motivated by two processes: habitual reinforcement of affective and social rewards experienced during performance (model-free learning) and reinforcement of pragmatic and cooperative benefits derived from culturally shared world models (model-based learning). This framework synthesizes previous accounts and illuminates ritual’s role in sustaining intersubjectively aligned world models in past and present societies.
