Rituals: Why We Keep Doing Them
People in every culture practice rituals—from simple prayers to long pilgrimages. Scientists now split the explanation into two big ideas:
Personal Empowerment
Rituals help individuals try to change uncertain situations. Think of a family praying before an exam or a team chanting for luck before a game. This view focuses on the emotions and social bonds that arise during the ritual.Social Cohesion
Rituals help maintain society by creating a shared worldview. When everyone follows the same steps, cooperation becomes easier.
A new model blends these ideas using concepts from machine learning. It proposes two kinds of learning that drive ritual practice:
Habitual Reinforcement
Like a reward system, this keeps people returning for the immediate emotions and social approval. It’s akin to a computer learning by trial and error without considering future consequences.Pragmatic Reinforcement
This involves the benefits of a shared cultural map. People learn to use these maps for cooperation and problem‑solving, similar to a computer that plans ahead based on an environmental model.
By combining habitual and pragmatic reinforcement, the framework explains how rituals preserve shared worldviews in both ancient and modern societies. In short, rituals work on two levels: they feel good right now and they build long‑term teamwork by aligning everyone’s ideas about how things work.
