Psychology has traditionally seen itself as the science of universal human cognition, but it
has only recently begun seriously grappling with cross-cultural variation. Here we argue that …

Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little
consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have …

INTRODUCTION A growing body of research suggests that populations around the globe
vary substantially along several important psychological dimensions and that populations …

British Psychology Society Textbook of the Year 2020 Why do people who are more socially
connected live longer and have better health than those who are socially isolated? Why are …

A radical exploration of how rituals have influenced history over thousands of years. From
infancy, we copy those around us in order to be like others, to be one with the tribe. Other …

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the
wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters …

We develop a cultural evolutionary theory of the origins of prosocial religions and apply it to
resolve two puzzles in human psychology and cultural history:(1) the rise of large-scale …

Since the origins of agriculture, the scale of human cooperation and societal complexity has
dramatically expanded,. This fact challenges standard evolutionary explanations of …

Priming has emerged as a valuable tool within the psychological study of religion, allowing
for tests of religion's causal effect on a number of psychological outcomes, such as prosocial …

Most social scientists endorse some version of the claim that participating in collective rituals
promotes social cohesion. The systematic testing and evaluation of this claim, however, has …