Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Previous research has shown that identity fusion can motivate violent self-sacrifice when the group is threatened. In this study we conducted an ethnographic content analysis of fifteen manifestos–expressing varied levels of extremism–to examine whether fusion and other relevant variables can be reliably identified and if the predictions of the fusion-plus-threat model are supported. Our findings indicate that linguistic proxies for identity fusion combined with mediating and moderating variables such as existential threat narratives, violence-condoning group norms and dehumanizing vocabulary, can be reliably identified and are more prevalent in the documents of would-be terrorists. This method may contribute to predicting the likelihood that individuals will engage in acts of violent extremism.

DOI： 10.1080/1057610X.2022.2109244

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

This study compares the narratives and language of QAnon groups in the encrypted messaging apps Telegram and Discord to those observed in the manifestos of terrorists. Drawing on our systematic linguistic analysis of fifteen terrorist manifestos that were published in the past decade, we developed a coding scheme which traces the narratives and linguistic markers that occur in the written communication of perpetrators of political violence. In this pilot study we apply our new coding scheme to QAnon content to assess the scale and nature of violence-associated narratives within the movement. Based on 200,000 messages that we collected from the online QAnon group “Great Awakening Community” on the gaming chat application Discord, we quantitatively examine to what degree they carry the trademarks of violent terrorist manifestos that are not found in non-violent texts. We then compared the results for the Great Awakening Community to content from both a non-violent and a violent-terrorist control group. To complement our computational assessment of QAnon narrative and linguistic patterns we share ethnographic observations from ten QAnon Telegram and Discord groups with English, German, and French speaking audiences. Past research has found that identity fusion in combination with a range of mediating and moderating variables is a strong predictor of violence in groups, and this is further supported by our terrorist manifesto analysis. Our study of QAnon messages found a high prevalence of linguistic identity fusion indicators along with external threat narratives, violence-condoning group norms as well as demonizing, dehumanizing, and derogatory vocabulary applied to the out-group, especially when compared to the non-violent control group. The aim of this piece of research is twofold: (i.) It seeks to evaluate the national security threat posed by the QAnon movement, and (ii.) it aims to provide a test of a novel linguistic toolkit aimed at helping to assess the risk of violence in online communication channels.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD  

DOI： 10.1080/2153599X.2020.1831799

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ROYAL SOC  

Human rituals exhibit bewildering diversity, from the Mauritian Kavadi to Catholic communion. Is this diversity infinitely plastic or are there some general dimensions along which ritual features vary? We analyse two cross-cultural datasets: one drawn from the anthropological record and another novel contemporary dataset, to examine whether a consistent underlying set of latent dimensions in ritual structure and experiences can be detected. First, we conduct a factor analysis on 651 rituals from 74 cultural groups, in which 102 binary variables are coded. We find a reliable set of dimensions emerged, which provide potential candidates for foundational elements of ritual form. Notably, we find that the expression of features associated with dysphoric and euphoric experiences in rituals appears to be largely orthogonal. Second, we follow-up with a pre-registered factor analysis examining contemporary ritual experiences of 779 individuals from Japan, India and the US. We find supporting evidence that ritual experiences are clustered in relatively orthogonal euphoric, dysphoric, frequency and cognitive dimensions. Our findings suggest that there are important regularities in the diversity of ritual expression and experience observed across both time and culture. We discuss the implications of these findings for cognitive theories of ritual and cultural evolution. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.

DOI： 10.1098/rstb.2019.0436

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE  

Although scientists agree that replications are critical to the debate on the validity of religious priming research, religious priming replications are scarce. This paper attempts to replicate and extend previously observed effects of religious priming on ethical behavior. We test the effect of religious instrumental music on individuals' ethical behavior with university participants (N = 408) in the Czech Republic, Japan, and the US. Participants were randomly assigned to listen to one of three musical tracks (religious, secular, or white noise) or to no music (control) for the duration of a decision-making game. Participants were asked to indicate which side of a vertically-bisected computer screen contained more dots and, in every trial, indicating that the right side of the screen had more dots earned participants the most money (irrespective of the number of dots). Therefore, participants were able to report dishonestly to earn more money. In agreement with previous research, we did not observe any main effects of condition. However, we were unable to replicate a moderating effect of self-reported religiosity on the effects of religious music on ethical behavior. Nevertheless, further analyses revealed moderating effects for ritual participation and declared religious affiliation congruent with the musical prime. That is, participants affiliated with a religious organization and taking part in rituals cheated significantly less than their peers when listening to religious music. We also observed significant differences in cheating behavior across samples. On average, US participants cheated the most and Czech participants cheated the least. We conclude that normative conduct is, in part, learned through active membership in religious communities and our findings provide further support for religious music as a subtle, moral cue.

DOI： 10.1371/journal.pone.0237007

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：FRONTIERS MEDIA SA  

A growing body of evidence suggests that two distinct forms of group alignment are possible: identification and fusion (the former asserts that group and personal identity are distinct, while the latter asserts group and personal identities are functionally equivalent and mutually reinforcing). Among highly fused individuals, group identity taps directly into personal agency and so any attack on the group is perceived as a personal attack and motivates a willingness to fight and possibly even die as a defensive response. As such, identity fusion is relevant in explaining violent extremism, including suicidal terrorist attacks. Identity fusion is theorized to arise as a result from experiences which are (1) perceived as shared and (2) transformative, however evidence for this relationship remains limited. Here, we present a pre-registered study in which we examine the role of transformativeness and perceived sharedness of group-defining events in generating identity fusion. We find that both of these factors are predictive of identity fusion but that the relationship with transformativeness was more consistent than perceived sharedness across analyses in a sample of Indonesian Muslims.

DOI： 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01172

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD  

The US Presidential Inauguration is a symbolic event which arouses significant emotional responses among diverse groups, and is of considerable significance to Americans' personal and social identities. We argue that the inauguration qualifies as an Imagistic Ritual. Such ritual experiences are thought to produce identity fusion: a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The 2017 Inauguration of President Trump was a unique opportunity to examine how a large-scale naturalistic imagistic ritual influences the social identities of Americans who supported and opposed President Trump. We conducted a pre-registered 7-week longitudinal investigation among a sample of Americans to examine how President Trump's Inauguration influenced identity fusion. We predicted that the affective responses to the inauguration would predict positive changes in fusion, mediated by self-reflection. We did not find support for this. However, the inauguration was associated with flashbulb-like memories, and positive emotions at the time of the event predicted changes in fusion to both ingroup and outgroup targets. Finally, both positive and negative emotional responses inspired self-reflection, but did not mediate the relationship with fusion. We discuss the implications for models linking group psychology, fusion theory, and ritual modes. All material is freely available at the Open Science Framework: .

DOI： 10.1080/15298868.2019.1578686

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Publishing type：Part of collection (book)  

In this chapter, we review recent research from a variety of disciplines to outline the role that collective rituals and religious beliefs play in fostering and maintaining cooperation. We consider ritual and religion as interactive but separate social technologies. First, with rituals we discuss their importance to social learning processes, examine their ability to bond groups through synchrony and shared emotion, and address their role as costly, persuasive signals of commitment. Second, we explore "religion" in the form of beliefs about supernatural agents and look at how such beliefs can contribute to – or hinder – cooperation. We evaluate long-standing claims that religion is a harmful social virus and contrasting recent theories that argue belief in "Big Gods" and "supernatural punishment" are crucial to enabling the cooperation necessary for large-scale societies.

DOI： 10.1017/9781108695374.016

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP  

We present three datasets from a project about the relationship between death anxiety and religiosity. These include data from 1,838 individuals in the United States (n = 813), Brazil (n = 800), Russia (n = 800), the Philippines (n = 200), South Korea (n = 200), and Japan (n = 219). Measures were largely consistent across samples: they include measures of death anxiety, experience of and exposure to death, religious belief, religious behaviour, religious experience, and demographic information. Responses have also been back-translated into English where necessary, though original untranslated data are also included.

DOI： 10.1038/s41597-020-0357-2

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD  

The popular image of Japan and religion presents something of a paradox. On the one hand, large cross-cultural surveys frequently present Japan as a country of non-believers, where only 10-15% of the population self-identify as religious and the vast majority rank religion as being of little importance to their lives. Yet, any visitor to Japan is likely to be struck by the sheer number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples that dot the landscape, and the diverse array of festivals (rnatsun) that are performed at these sites. In this article, we argue that the apparent paradox is actually an illusion generated by the unwarranted ethnocentric assumption that religion everywhere must resemble the features of the Abrahamic faiths that are predominant in Western societies. To make our case we first review recurrent theoretical and definitional debates concerning religion and examine how they relate to the Japanese context Second, we explore patterns in contemporary data from an online survey of N = 1,000 Japanese that asked about religious beliefs and practices. We illustrate through the results obtained that to understand religion in Japan it is necessary to move beyond theocentric approaches and expectations that religious belief must be tied to religious identities or exclusive membership in a given tradition. To conclude, we argue that the patterns observed in Japan demonstrate that scholars who wish to explore religion cross-culturally need to take greater account of orthopraxic cultural contexts and distinguish between 'theocentric' doctrinal beliefs and broader supernatural beliefs.

DOI： 10.1558/jsrnc.39187

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Language：English   Publisher：EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD  

DOI： 10.1558/jsrnc.40580

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING FOUNDATION-AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC  

The present study aims to understand the roles of religious fundamentalism and collective narcissism in predicting extreme behavior. It was hypothesized that religious fundamentalism may enhance collective narcissism and that this would in turn increase the tendency to endorse extreme behavior. It was also anticipated that perceptions of social tightness would moderate the indirect effect of religious fundamentalism on extreme behavior through collective narcissism. To test the hypotheses, we collected data from 787 members of Islamic religious groups in Indonesia (male = 457, female = 325); ages ranged from 17 to 52 (M = 25.14, SD = 8.49). Supporting the hypotheses, our findings demonstrated the validity of the expected pathways, confirming that it is important to consider the role of collective narcissism and tightness-looseness when studying relationships between religious fundamentalism and extreme behavior. Our findings demonstrate that when religious fundamentalists are able to see their cultural values in a loose way or more dynamics, they may become less narcissistic collective and less support for extreme behaviors.

DOI： 10.1037/rel0000269

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Humans have created and maintained an exponentially large and sophisticated behavioral corpus over evolutionary time. In no small part this was achieved due to our tendency to imitate behaviours rather than to emulate outcomes. This tendency, however, can lead to inefficiency and redundancy in our behavioral repertoires. Drawing on evidence from multiple fields of psychology, we propose two novel competing hypotheses. The ‘catalyst hypothesis’ suggests that low (but not high) proportions of ritualized gesture in instrumental action sequences will improve subsequent recall of the entire action sequence (without itself enhancing the instrumental utility of the sequence). Conversely, the ‘cost hypothesis’ suggests that increasing proportions of ritualized gesture will impair recall, due to the introduction of cognitive load. The null hypothesis states that ritualized gestures are neither beneficial nor costly. In a pre-registered experiment, we presented participants with multiple versions of two complicated 2-min action sequences in which we varied the proportion of ritualized gesture. We then quantified the influence ritualized gesture had on recall for individuals gestures, overall outcomes, and described detail. We found clear evidence that high proportions of ritualized gestures impair recall for individual gestures and overall success, and weak evidence that low proportions increase overall success. At present, we may reject the null, but cannot rule out either of our competing hypotheses. We discuss potential implications for cultural evolution, and generate competing predictions that allow for adjudication between Ritual Modes theory (Whitehouse, 2004) and the ‘Cognitive Resource Depletion’ account of Religious Interaction (Schjoedt et al., 2013). All files (including data and syntax) are freely available at https://osf.io/spz68/.

DOI： 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.08.005

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：BRILL ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS  

In response to the recent publication of Theory In a Time of Excess this article offers an outsider perspective on the theoretical issues raised and why they are ultimately unlikely to be resolved. The article argues that there is a widespread problematic tendency to equate theory with a specific category of critical theory that tautologically restricts the theoretical boundaries of the study of religion field and neglects the contributions of more empirically inclined theorists. In a similar manner, essentialising narratives about the Cognitive Science of Religion that portray the field as unified and monolithic are highlighted and the validity of such critiques is questioned.

DOI： 10.1163/15700682-12341439

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：NATL ACAD SCIENCES  

Biologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships and how those differences influence culture. This study measures relational mobility, a socioecological variable quantifying voluntary (high relational mobility) vs. fixed (low relational mobility) interpersonal relationships. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and test whether it predicts social behavior. People in societies with higher relational mobility report more proactive interpersonal behaviors (e.g., self-disclosure and social support) and psychological tendencies that help them build and retain relationships (e.g., general trust, intimacy, self-esteem). Finally, we explore ecological factors that could explain relational mobility differences across societies. Relational mobility was lower in societies that practiced settled, interdependent subsistence styles, such as rice farming, and in societies that had stronger ecological and historical threats.

DOI： 10.1073/pnas.1713191115

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：WILEY  

A cross-sectional study was conducted with 605 practitioners of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) to test the hypothesis that high arousal rituals promote social cohesion, primarily through identity fusion. BJJ promotion rituals are rare, highly emotional ritual events that often feature gruelling belt-whipping gauntlets. We used the variation in such experiences to examine whether more gruelling rituals were associated with identity fusion and pro-group behaviour. We found no differences between those who had undergone belt-whipping and those who had not and no evidence of a correlation between pain and social cohesion. However, across the full sample we found that positive, but not negative, affective experiences of promotional rituals were associated with identity fusion and that this mediated pro-group action. These findings provide new evidence concerning the social functions of collective rituals and highlight the importance of addressing the potentially diverging subjective experiences of painful rituals.

DOI： 10.1002/ejsp.2514

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS  

We question the privileged role of trance within the framework presented. The features that Singh suggests make it unique are not well demarcated from those of rituals more generally, and we challenge the depth of explanation presented for the mechanisms of trance. We outline the form of a solution, which may facilitate increased operational utility for the presented framework.

DOI： 10.1017/S0140525X17002102

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DOI： 10.1080/2153599X.2017.1414708

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

DOI： 10.9707/2307-0919.1154

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP  

Willingness to lay down one's life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample populations (including military veterans, college fraternity/sorority members, football fans, martial arts practitioners, and twins). Our empirical results show that sharing painful experiences produces "identity fusion" -a visceral sense of oneness which in turn can motivate self-sacrifice, including willingness to fight and die for the group. Practically, our account of how shared dysphoric experiences produce identity fusion helps us better understand such pressing social issues as suicide terrorism, holy wars, sectarian violence, gang-related violence, and other forms of intergroup conflict.

DOI： 10.1038/srep44292

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD  

DOI： 10.1080/2153599X.2016.1150330

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DOI： 10.1080/2153599X.2015.1015048

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DOI： 10.21237/C7clio7233542

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE  

Across three studies, we examined the role of shared negative experiences in the formation of strong social bonds-identity fusion-previously associated with individuals' willingness to self-sacrifice for the sake of their groups. Studies 1 and 2 were correlational studies conducted on two different populations. In Study 1, we found that the extent to which Northern Irish Republicans and Unionists experienced shared negative experiences was associated with levels of identity fusion, and that this relationship was mediated by their reflection on these experiences. In Study 2, we replicated this finding among Bostonians, looking at their experiences of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. These correlational studies provide initial evidence for the plausibility of our causal model; however, an experiment was required for a more direct test. Thus, in Study 3, we experimentally manipulated the salience of the Boston Marathon Bombings, and found that this increased state levels of identity fusion among those who experienced it negatively. Taken together, these three studies provide evidence that shared negative experience leads to identity fusion, and that this process involves personal reflection.

DOI： 10.1371/journal.pone.0145611

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH  

In recent years, theoretical and empirical work done under the rubric of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) have led many to conclude that religion (or, at least, some aspects thereof) is "natural". By this, it is meant that human beings are predisposed to believe in supernatural agents, and that their beliefs about these agents are constrained in various ways. The details about how and why these predispositions and cognitive constraints developed and evolved are still largely unknown, though there is enough of a theoretical consensus in CSR for philosophers to have begun reflecting on the implications of CSR for religious belief. In particular, much philosophical work has been done on the implications of CSR for theism, on both sides of the debate. On one hand, CSR might contribute to defeating particular arguments for theism, or indeed theism altogether; on the other hand, CSR might provide support for specific theological views. In this paper, we argue that the CSR is largely irrelevant for classical theism, and in particular that the "naturalness hypothesis" is much less congenial to theism than some have previously argued.

DOI： 10.1515/nzsth-2015-0012

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