Psychology of ritual
“How does ritual become meaningful and intuitively inevitable?
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Psychology of Ritual
Cognitive Foundations
Economic Scarcity
Collective Identity
Subjective Realities
Anthropological perspective
Ethical Interventions
Marginalized Communities
Project Motivation
The Shandong Bureau of Poverty Alleviation aimed to induce a shift in spending towards education and long-term investments, away from ritual expenditures. Despite these efforts, communities facing severe resource constraints continued to dedicate significant portions of their income to ritual practices. This paradox formed the heart of my ethnographic research, as I sought to uncover the cognitive and cultural mechanisms that shape seemingly irrational economic behaviors within marginalized communities.
Psychological Findings
Through immersive fieldwork in Linqu, Shandong, I used participant observation to understand how individuals navigate economic scarcity while upholding cultural traditions. My approach combined direct engagement—working alongside villagers in budgeting, farming, and ritual preparations—with in-depth interviews to capture the nuanced social obligations and emotional drivers behind these practices. By employing qualitative coding, I systematically analyzed these narratives to identify the recurring themes and environmental feedback loops that influence decision-making.
Anthropological and Psychological Insights: Honoring Truth While Promoting Change
Human actions are never truly irrational; they are deeply rooted in subjective realities shaped by cultural histories and environmental contexts. Anthropology teaches us that these diverse truths are not merely individual quirks but intricate webs of meaning—each practice is a vessel carrying collective identity, a continuity of traditions, and the embodiment of social belonging. To understand these rituals is to recognize them as the connective tissue of community, forged and reinforced by generations. Anthropology demands that we honor this complex human tapestry, detaching our assumption of normative value, and respecting the nuanced ways individuals construct their worlds and make sense of their place within them.
Psychology, conversely, offers a pathway to understanding how these constructs can evolve. It provides us with the frameworks to ethically design interventions that aim to improve well-being, acknowledging the embedded truths while seeking to induce shifts in behavior. This discipline challenges us to engage thoughtfully—how can we promote change without undermining the very foundations of cultural cohesion?
Together, anthropology and psychology form a powerful dual lens: one that respects and preserves the authenticity of lived experiences, and another that opens possibilities for behavioral evolution. By bridging these disciplines, we can pursue interventions that are not coercive but transformative, aligning cultural respect with opportunities for growth. My work contributed to understanding how social obligations, cultural narratives, and environmental constraints shape cognitive frameworks, providing insights that bridge anthropology and behavioral economics. These findings aim to inform interventions that respect and work within existing cultural structures rather than attempting to eradicate them.
2021-2024
Through immersive fieldwork in Linqu, Shandong, I used participant observation to understand how individuals navigate economic scarcity while upholding cultural traditions. My approach combined direct engagement—working alongside villagers in budgeting, farming, and ritual preparations—with in-depth interviews to capture the nuanced social obligations and emotional drivers behind these practices. By employing qualitative coding, I systematically analyzed these narratives to identify the recurring themes and environmental feedback loops that influence decision-making.
This research revealed that ritual expenditures, though financially burdensome, serve crucial functions in maintaining social cohesion and identity, and these practices are perceived as necessities rather than choices. My work contributed to understanding how social obligations, cultural narratives, and environmental constraints shape cognitive frameworks, providing insights that bridge anthropology and behavioral economics. These findings aim to inform interventions that respect and work within existing cultural structures rather than attempting to eradicate them.
