Analyses from Watch me, watch you: ritual participation increases in-group displays and out-group monitoring in children

Collective rituals serve social functions for the groups that perform them, including identifying group members and signalling group commitment. A novel social group paradigm was used in an afterschool programme (<i>N</i> = 60 4–11-year-olds) to test the influence of participating in a ritual task on in-group displays and out-group monitoring over repeated exposures to the group. The results demonstrate that ritual participation increases in-group displays (i.e. time spent displaying materials to in-group members) and out-group monitoring (i.e. time spent looking at out-group members) compared with a control task across three time points. This study provides evidence for the processes by which rituals may influence children's behaviours towards in- and out-group members and discusses implications for understanding the development of ritual cognition and behaviour.

集体仪式为践行仪式的群体发挥社会功能，涵盖识别群体成员与彰显群体承诺。本研究借助课后项目中的新型社会群体范式（N=60名4至11岁儿童），在多次接触群体的情境下，检验参与仪式任务对群体内展示行为与群体外监控行为的影响。研究结果表明，相较于对照任务，在三个时间节点中，参与仪式均可提升群体内展示行为（即向群体内成员展示物品所耗费的时长）与群体外监控行为（即观察群体外成员所耗费的时长）。本研究为仪式影响儿童对待群体内、外成员行为的作用机制提供了实证支撑，并探讨了其对理解仪式认知与行为发展的启示价值。