Look up and kneel down before your God: why the position matters
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Most religious traditions emphasize strict power distinctions between the human and superhuman/divine and often demand a submissive attitude towards the superhuman agents. This attitude can be enforced not only directly in teachings and theology of the given religious tradition, but also by ritual practices using embodied states of submission, such as kneeling, prostrating or looking up to the representation of deity. I argue that these practices in religious rituals are not mere expressions of subordination; rather, they establish and modulate submissive attitude and behaviour towards the superhuman agents. Experimental evidence supports this assertion for other bodily postures and the vertical orientation of perception. There is however no exhaustive research program focusing on submissive positions and dominance cues in religious rituals. The proposed paper will present experimental research exploring the influence of posture and location of stimuli on the perceptions and self-perceptions of power and dominance. |
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