Pain and suffering as part of religious life: The Mauritian Thaipusam kavadi
In a pop-science article published in Dingir, E. Kundtová Klocová discusses the various socio-cultural aspects of the Thaipusam Kavadi ritual as practiced in Mauritius.
In a series of experimental studies M. Lang with R. Chvaja and B. G. Purzycki demonstrated that costly signals assort more cooperative participants who create ultra-cooperative, successful groups.
How do individuals seek reliable partners in intergroup conflicts? The authors simulated intergroup conflict using economic games with US participants in four consecutive studies to examine the role of costly commitment signals in the choice of partners during group formation for the purpose of intergorup competiiton. The results showed that only extreme cooperators used very costly signals and created ultra-cooperative groups, willing to harm other groups to benefit their own.
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In a pop-science article published in Dingir, E. Kundtová Klocová discusses the various socio-cultural aspects of the Thaipusam Kavadi ritual as practiced in Mauritius.
Religious experiences can be found across many cultures in various forms. Nevertheless, we can trace their underlying and potentially universal factors. In her thesis, Jana asks whether these factors include sensory deprivation, social seclusion, and the influence of authority. She further explores how these factors manifest in the context of experience. Her research is based on the predictive processing theory, assuming that our bodies and minds constantly predict ongoing events and that under the influence of studied factors, these predictions – including those learned from religion – can dominate over sensory perceptions.