Dimitris Xygalatas, "Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living" (Little, Brown Spark, 2022)
New Books in Anthropology
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The Role of Rituals in the Development of Children
Rituals are very appealing to young children. They seem to have a sense that these rituals do something. And this same sense stays with us as, as adults in a study that my colleagues and I have done. We showed people athletes shooting free throws from basketball games, and for half of them, we showed them the pre shot rituals that athletes perform. Sometimes they kiss the ball or they spin the ball, for example. The other half of the times we didn't. But when, when the shot was ritualized, people were more likely to make a prediction about whether it was going to be successful. So there's a sense that rituals actually have efficacy.
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