Doctoral Dissertation Research: Exploring Somatic Dimensions of Group Solidarity, Cooperation, and Altruism

本研究旨在探讨仪式中的身体运动对群体认同、团结与合作的影响，以及群体内和群体间的利他主义。与正式的实验室行为研究和文化进化建模工作在加州大学戴维斯分校和不列颠哥伦比亚省的大学协调，它采用了独特的融合社区为基础的参与行动研究（PAR），行为实验与博弈论，和认知人类学的方法。该项目发生在美国的土著群体中，这些社区正在重建社区，并看到传统仪式舞蹈实践的强烈复兴，其明确动机是身份和团结。这为社会相关的合作研究和仪式的生物文化进化理论的测试创造了丰富的背景。人类行为生态学领域的最新发现表明，人类的许多基本行为都是对生物和经济约束的适应。 在采用人类行为生态学模型的同时，本研究将研究一系列看似复杂的仪式行为，这些行为迄今为止一直依赖于人类学中的抽象方法，这些方法将象征主义作为解释变量。 通过将仪式分解为一系列可检验的前提，本研究为人类行为生态学提供了一个潜在的模型，可以用来研究其他重要的文化现象，而这些文化现象通常是无法通过控制实验来检验的。同步-涉及同步运动的身体动作将促进群体认同、合作和利他主义，但仅限于从业者群体内。2.平静-培养平静状态的身体练习将减少群体认同，并在更广泛的背景下促进合作和利他主义。本研究通过定性访谈、参与者观察和正式实验，考察了仪式实践对这些风格的影响。该项目的PAR框架意味着该项目的方法和目标都将来自当地社区和研究人员之间的合作。这项研究代表了文化人类学方法的变化，通过实验研究历史上使用民族志方法研究的东西。该项目还有助于培养一名人类学研究生。

This project investigates the effects of bodily movement within ritual practice on group identity, solidarity, and cooperation as well as both within group and between group altruism. Coordinating with formal laboratory behavioral studies and cultural evolution modeling efforts at University of California, Davis, and University of British Columbia, it employs a unique fusion of community-based participatory action research (PAR), behavioral experiments with game theory, and cognitive anthropology methods. The project takes place among indigenous groups in the U.S. The communities are in a process of rebuilding community and seeing a strong resurgence in traditional ritual dance practice explicitly motivated by identity and solidarity. This creates a rich context for both socially relevant collaborative research and testing of biocultural evolutionary theories of ritual. Recent findings from the field of human behavioral ecology demonstrate how many fundamental human behaviors are adaptions to biological and economic constraints. While employing the human behavioral ecology model, this research will examine a seemingly complex set of behaviors surrounding ritual which until now have relied on abstract methods in anthropology that employ symbolism as an explanatory variable. By disaggregating ritual into a set of testable premises this research is a potential model for the way human behavioral ecology can address other important cultural phenomena that are typically not testable using controlled experiments.This project investigates several models of ritual function, concentrating on two specific models: 1. Synchrony - physical actions that involve synchronized movement will promote group identification and cooperation and altruism, but only within the group of practitioners. 2. Calming - physical practices which cultivate a state of calm will reduce group identification and promote cooperation and altruism in a broader range of contexts. This research examines ritual practices that exemplify each of these styles for their effects on both parochialism and universal altruism through qualitative interviews, participant observation, and formal experiments. The PAR framework of the project implies that both method and objective of the project will emerge out of collaboration between the local community and the researchers. This research represents a change in approach for cultural anthropology by studying something experimentally that historically was studied using ethnographic methods. The project also contributes to the education of a graduate student in anthropology.