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Divergent Modes Of Religiosity
The theory of divergent modes of religiosity (DMR) is intended to explain how religions are created, transmitted, and changed. DMR theory was first developed by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse following his ethnographic fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. The theory proposes that religions tend to coalesce around two divergent modes, termed ''imagistic'' and ''doctrinal'', which are distinguished primarily by their ritual practices. The ''imagistic'' mode is characterized by infrequently performed, high arousal rituals (e.g. initiation rites) and is associated with small scale, exclusive religious groups. In contrast the ''doctrinal'' mode is characterized by frequently performed, low arousal rituals (e.g. daily recitations of sacred texts) and is associated with larger inclusive communities, as found in the major world religions. The theory posits that these differing ritual patterns promote the transmission of religious traditions by exploiting core memory processes. Imagistic rituals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvey Whitehouse
Harvey Whitehouse is chair of social anthropology and professorial fellow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford. Education and early career Whitehouse received his B.A. degree in social anthropology from the London School of Economics in 1985. He completed his PhD in anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 1990. Whitehouse is generally regarded as one of the founders of the cognitive science of religion field. After carrying out two years of field research on a 'cargo cult' in New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in the late 1980s, he developed a theory of " modes of religiosity" that has been the subject of extensive critical evaluation and testing by social anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, and sociologists. The theory of modes of religiosity seeks to explain the role of ritual in processes of group bonding and in the evolution of social complexity. Two modes are distinguished: imagistic and doctrinal. In the imagistic mode, collective rituals are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia (a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia). Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of . At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, including nearly 60 years of Australian administration starting during World War I, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Elizabeth II as its queen. It also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right. There are 839 known languages of Papua New Guinea, one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initiation
Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense, it can also signify a transformation in which the initiate is 'reborn' into a new role. Examples of initiation ceremonies might include Christian baptism or confirmation, Jewish bar or bat mitzvah, acceptance into a fraternal organization, secret society or religious order, or graduation from school or recruit training. A person taking the initiation ceremony in traditional rites, such as those depicted in these pictures, is called an ''initiate''. See also rite of passage. Characteristics William Ian Miller notes the role of ritual humiliation in comic ordering and testing. Mircea Eliade discussed initiation as a principal religious act by classical or traditional societies. He defined initiation as "a basic change in existential condition", which liberates man from p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flashbulb Memory
A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event that has happened in the past. The term "flashbulb memory" suggests the surprise, indiscriminate illumination, detail, and brevity of a photograph; however flashbulb memories are only somewhat indiscriminate and are far from complete. Evidence has shown that although people are highly confident in their memories, the details of the memories can be forgotten. Flashbulb memories are one type of autobiographical memory. Some researchers believe that there is reason to distinguish flashbulb memories from other types of autobiographical memory because they rely on elements of personal importance, consequence, emotion, and surprise. Others believe that ordinary memories can also be accurate and long-lasting if they are highly distinctive, personally significant, or repeatedly rehearsed.Neisser, U. (1982). "Snapshots or benchmarks", Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts, ed. 43–48, San Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Episodic Memory
Episodic memory is the memory of everyday events (such as times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual information) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at particular times and places; for example, the party on one's 7th birthday. Along with semantic memory, it comprises the category of explicit memory, one of the two major divisions of long-term memory (the other being implicit memory). The term "episodic memory" was coined by Endel Tulving in 1972, referring to the distinction between knowing and remembering: ''knowing'' is factual recollection (semantic) whereas ''remembering'' is a feeling that is located in the past (episodic). One of the main components of episodic memory is the process of recollection, which elicits the retrieval of contextual information pertaining to a specific event or experience that has occurred. Tulving seminally defined three key properties of episodic memo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procedural Memory
Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory (unconscious, long-term memory) which aids the performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences. Procedural memory guides the processes we perform, and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness. When needed, procedural memories are automatically retrieved and utilized for execution of the integrated procedures involved in both cognitive and motor skills, from tying shoes, to reading, to flying an airplane. Procedural memories are accessed and used without the need for conscious control or attention. Procedural memory is created through ''procedural learning'', or repeating a complex activity over and over again until all of the relevant neural systems work together to automatically produce the activity. Implicit procedural learning is essential for the development of any motor skill or cognitive activity. History The difference between procedural and declarativ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantic Memory
Semantic memory refers to general world knowledge that humans have accumulated throughout their lives. This general knowledge (word meanings, concepts, facts, and ideas) is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. We can learn about new concepts by applying our knowledge learned from things in the past. Semantic memory is distinct from episodic memory, which is our memory of experiences and specific events that occur during our lives, from which we can recreate at any given point. For instance, semantic memory might contain information about what a cat is, whereas episodic memory might contain a specific memory of petting a particular cat. Semantic memory and episodic memory are both types of explicit memory (or declarative memory), that is, memory of facts or events that can be consciously recalled and "declared". The counterpart to declarative or explicit memory is nondeclarative memory or implicit memory. History The idea of semantic memory was first intro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Relations Area Files
The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF), located in New Haven, Connecticut, US, is an international nonprofit membership organization with over 500 member institutions in more than 20 countries. A financially autonomous research agency based at Yale University since 1949, its mission is to promote understanding of cultural diversity and commonality in the past and present. To accomplish this mission, the Human Relations Area Files produces scholarly resources and infrastructure for research, teaching and learning, and supports and conducts original research on cross-cultural variation. HRAF produces two flagship databases accessible by its members: ''eHRAF World Cultures'' and ''eHRAF Archaeology''. HRAF also sponsors and edits the quarterly journal, ''Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science''. Expanded and updated annually, ''eHRAF World Cultures'' includes ethnographic materials on cultures, past and present, all over the world. Also expanding an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rite Of Passage
A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite de passage'', a French term innovated by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his work ''Les rites de passage'', ''The Rites of Passage''. The term is now fully adopted into anthropology as well as into the literature and popular cultures of many modern languages. Original conception In English, Van Gennep's first sentence of his first chapter begins: "Each larger society contains within it several distinctly separate groupings. ... In addition, all these groups break down into still smaller societies in subgroups." The population of a society belongs to multiple groups, some more important to the individual than others. Van Gennep uses the metaphor, "as a kind of house divided into rooms and corridors." A passage occurs when an indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Identity Fusion
Identity fusion, a psychological construct rooted in social psychology and cognitive anthropology, is a form of alignment with groups in which members experience a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The construct relies on a distinction between the personal self (characteristics that make someone a unique person, such as height, age, or personality) and the social self (characteristics that align the person with various groups, such as common nationalities, interests, or motivations). As the name suggests, identity fusion involves the union of the personal and social selves. When fusion occurs, both the personal and social selves remain salient and influential but the boundaries between them become highly permeable. In addition, the theory proposes that fused persons come to regard other group members as "family" and develop strong relational ties to them as well as ties to the collective. Therefore, fused persons are not just bound to the collective; they are tied to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affect (psychology)
Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling." A number of experiments have been conducted in the study of social and psychological affective preferences (i.e., what people like or dislike). Specific research has been done on preferences, attitudes, impression formation, and decision-making. This research contrasts findings with recognition memory (old-new judgments), allowing researchers to demonstrate reliable distinctions between the two. Affect-based judgments and cognitive processes have been examined with noted differences indicated, and some argue affect and cognition are under the control of separate and partially independent systems that can influence each other in a variety of ways (Zajonc, 1980). Both affect and cognition may constitute independent sources of effects within ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Communion
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper; giving his disciples bread and wine during a Passover meal, he commanded them to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many". The elements of the Eucharist, sacramental bread (leavened or unleavened) and wine (or non-alcoholic grape juice), are consecrated on an altar or a communion table and consumed thereafter, usually on Sundays. Communicants, those who consume the elements, may speak of "receiving the Eucharist" as well as "celebrating the Eucharist". Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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