Learning why cultural rituals differ breaks functional fixedness

Evidence

So in experiment 2, we assigned participants who had previously lived abroad to one of four conditions: In the functional multicultural learning experience condition, participants were asked to recall and write about a multicultural experience in which they learned the underlying reasons why people from a different culture behave the way they do. In the functional within-culture learning condition, participants were asked to recall and write about a time in which they learned the underlying reasons why people from their own culture behave the way they do. In these two conditions, participants were asked to write why what they learned was new to them. In the new sport–learning condition, participants were asked to recall and write about a time they learned a new sport. In a control condition, participants were asked to recall and write about the last time they visited the supermarket. After completing the priming task, participants were instructed to complete the RAT. As predicted, we found that participants primed with the functional multicultural learning experience correctly solved more RAT triads than participants in the other three conditions (Maddux et al., 2010, experiment 2). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2242 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In short, in the secret society the nature of ritual objectively often quite senseless and schematically coercive is by no means inconsistent with that group freedom which resembles anarchy, with severance from the norms of the inclusive society. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 8744 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bringing functional background culture into the foreground paradoxically destroys its original function — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 325; Internal rigid ritual can coexist with radical external freedom from social norms — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 8744; Learning why other cultures behave as they do enhances creative problem solving — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2242 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Learning why other cultures behave as they do enhances creative problem solving #corroborates (1.00) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2242
• Internal rigid ritual can coexist with radical external freedom from social norms #complicates (0.74) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 8744