Religious unity across ethnic lines rests on rituals and language generating obligated interdependence

Evidence

A religious worldview can unite individuals across other (e.g., racial and ethnic) dimensions, and such unity is fostered by shared rituals, artifacts, and language all of which lead to obligated interdependence between members (Caporael, 1997; Caporael & Brewer, 1995). Obligated interdependence occurs when members of a group depend on other members to perform certain tasks or provide resources that each member cannot perform or obtain efficiently as an individual (Caporael, 1997; Caporael & Brewer, 1995). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 898

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines ‘obligated interdependence’ and reframes religious unity as a division-of-labor system rather than mere belief-sharing.
• XREF: Mirrors the economic logic in Milgrom’s law-merchant work — institutions arise where coordination requires supplementing individual capacity — here applied to religious collectives.

Related

• Shared ritual creates religious unity that overrides racial and ethnic divisions (similarity 0.90)