Ritualization is a behavior that occurs typically in a member of a given

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

in a highly

stereotyped In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

fashion and independent of any direct

physiological Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...

significance. It is found, in differing forms, both in non-human animals and in humans.

In non-human animals

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often rega ...

, working with greylag geese and other animals such as water shrews, showed that ritualization was an important process in their development. He showed that the geese obsessively displayed a reflexive motor pattern of egg retrieval when stimulated by the sight of an egg outside their nest. Similarly, in the shrews, Lorenz showed that once they had become used to jumping over a stone in their path, they went on jumping at that place after the stone was taken away. This sort of behaviour is analogous to obsessive-compulsive disorder in humans. Oskar Heinroth in 1910 and Lorenz from 1935 onwards studied the triumph ceremony in geese; Lorenz described it as becoming a fixed ritual. It involves a rolling behaviour (of the head and neck) and cackling with the head stretched forward, and occurs only among geese that know each other, meaning within a family or between mates. The triumph ceremony appears in varied situations, such as when mates meet after having been separated, when disturbed, or after an attack. The behaviour is now known also in other species, such as Canada goose.

In humans

Ritualization is associated with the work of Catherine Bell. Bell, drawing on the

Practice Theory Practice theory (or praxeology, theory of social practices) is a body of social theory within anthropology and sociology that explains society and culture as the result of structure and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the late 20th c ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

, has taken a less functional view of

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

with her elaboration of ritualization. More recently scholars interested in the cognitive science of religion such as Pascal Boyer,

Pierre Liénard Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

, and William W. McCorkle, Jr. have been involved in experimental, ethnographic, and archival research on how ritualized actions might inform the study of ritualization and ritual forms of action. Boyer, Liénard, and McCorkle argue that ritualized compulsions are in relation to an evolved cognitive architecture where social, cultural, and environmental selection pressures stimulate "hazard-precaution" systems such as predation, contagion, and disgust in human minds. McCorkle argued that these ritualized compulsions (especially in regard to dead bodies vis-à-vis, mortuary behavior) were turned into ritual scripts by professional guilds only several thousand years ago with advancement in technology such as the domestication of plants and animals, literacy, and writing.McCorkle Jr., William W. "Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept." Peter Lang, 2010.

References

{{psych-stub Behavioral ecology Ritual