Positive Association Between Ritual Performance and Perceived Objectivity of Moral Norms

Abstract

We examined the relationship between religious rituals and how people perceive moral norms. Prominent anthropological theories propose that rituals charge associated moral norms with objectivity such that moral norms are perceived as absolute and independent of time and space. We used two cross-sectional datasets to test this hypothesis and conducted five correlational studies with three culturally distinct populations. The results, supported by meta-analysis of our effect sizes, show a positive association between attending collective religious rituals and perceiving moral norms as objective. Moreover, increased saliency of the characteristic aspects of ritual form, namely the perceived invariance, and digitalizing and materializing potentials, was associated with increased reporting of moral norms as objective. Overall, this manuscript provides initial support for theories suggesting that ritual behavior helps ground moral norms by affecting perceptual mechanisms related to norm processing.