The Power of Extreme Rituals on Moral Behavior

Extreme rituals have a big effect on promoting moral behavior, not among the performers of the ritual, but on observers. When you are engaging in action, in rhythm with somebody else, that creates the psychological connection that makes people feel fused as a group. There's many, many more examples of really terribly painful rituals. Why did they emerge? It's not at random. The ones that we have exist because they have this impact on our psychology and allow groups to cohere around each other....