029: Dr Dimitris Xygalatas on the behavioural science of extreme rituals

This is a conversation with anthropologist and cognitive scientist Dr Dimitris Xygalatas, who is an expert in rituals, whether religious, sporting, tribal, individual, collective or otherwise.

Rituals are part of all our lives, unconsciously so sometimes. Whether it's birthdays, pre-match warmup exercises or religious ceremonies, we're familiar mainly with low intensity, repetitive ones. It's the more intense, extreme rituals, in particular, which fascinate me for their arousing nature, their extravagance, their social breadth, and their emotional and physiological consequences; like that Thaipusam Kavadi body piercing festival in Mauritius or the fire walking celebrations in San Pedro Manrique, Spain. On top of these highly prosocial rituals, we also address how synchrony affects gatherings and the collective effervescence, goose steps and goose bumps of very antisocial Nazi parades.

Dimitris is going to walk us through all these ideas and more. I think you'll enjoy it!

Next time with Jeff Kreisler

Next time, I'll be talking money with Jeff Kreisler. Jeff wrote the book Small Change: Money Mishaps and How to Avoid Them with Dan Ariely. Jeff is a qualified lawyer, stand-up comedian and now Head of BS at J.P. Morgan Chase bank.

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Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto