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

Abstract

© 2021 The Author(s). Collective rituals serve social functions for the groups that perform them, including identifying group members and signaling group commitment. A novel social group paradigm was used in an afterschool program (N = 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 to a control task across three time points. This study provides evidence for the processes by which rituals may influence children’s behaviors toward in- and outgroup members and discusses implications for understanding the development of ritual cognition and behavior.