Inducing anxiety in a laboratory setting results in ritualized behavior
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Rituals exist in every human society, and despite incredible cross cultural diversity, there are several fundamental features common to the majority of them. At the cultural level, rituals are associated with times of stress, and uncertainty. At the individual level, there exist universal "ritualized behaviors," often assumed to assuage anxiety. Boyer and Liénard theorize that ritualized behaviors are the result of cognitive structures that urge diligent focus on ongoing actions whose activation results in anxiety reduction. The generally recognized characteristics of ritualized behavior are: non-functionality, rigidity, repetitiveness, and compulsiveness. If Boyer and Liénard are correct then individuals who are more anxious ought to engage in behaviors that are more ritualized. We tested the hypothesis that anxious people engage in more repetitive, rigid and redundant behavioral movement. |
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