Sacred values can form quickly through ritual and perceived group threat.

Evidence

Given the influence of sacred values on decision making, it seems important to understand how values acquire sacredness and to explain why some people are more likely than others to think of their preferences as sacred values. While many sacred values have deep historical roots, others can aquire sacredness quite quickly (Dehghani et al., 2009; Dehghani et al., 2010; Rozin & Wolf, 2008). Famously, Ghandi tranformed salt into a sacred value as part of his opposition to British colonial rule (Spear, 1990). … Our research was guided by two ideas: first, people may confer sacredness on preferences, objects or practices by incorporating these preferences into religious rituals (Alcorta & Sosis, 2006) thus expanding the category of religious values to include previously secular preferences (Rozin, 1999); and second, that this process is more likely to occur under conditions of high perceived group threat. — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 8

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to ‘On Sacrifice’ — this is the ritual-sacralization mechanism that paper’s grief/love framing gestures toward.
• DEFINE: Defines the paper’s core hypothesis: rituals expand religious values to secular preferences, heightened under threat.
• XREF: connects to: Participation in religious ritual and perceived group threat jointly make people sacralize preferences. — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 3; Participation in religious ritual creates sacred values, especially under group threat. — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 16; Ritual participation plus perceived threat converts disputed preferences into sacred values. — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 58 (+9 more)

Related

• Participation in religious ritual creates sacred values, especially under group threat. (similarity 0.92)
• Participation in religious ritual and perceived group threat jointly make people sacralize preferences. (similarity 0.92)
• External threat drives groups to ritualize preferences into sacred values (similarity 0.92)
• Perceived out-group threat amplifies ritual-driven sacralization of values. (similarity 0.92)
• Ritual participation plus perceived threat converts disputed preferences into sacred values. (similarity 0.91)
• Religious ritual participation increases sacred values even on non-religious topics. (similarity 0.91)
• Participation in religious ritual, not broader psychological traits, predicts sacred values. (similarity 0.89)
• Sacred values bind group identity and give groups advantage through non-rational commitment. (similarity 0.86)
• Merely reminding people of religious ritual raises how many sacred values they claim. (similarity 0.86)
• Sacred-value commitment produces costly sacrifice that lets weak groups beat stronger foes. (similarity 0.84)
• Merely reminding Muslims of their religiosity increases how many values they call sacred (similarity 0.84)
• Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran — Religion, group threat and sacred values (similarity 0.82)
• Sacralized values resist material incentives and cause offer-driven concessions to backfire (similarity 0.82)
• Sacred values resist tradeoffs because communities set them apart as nonfungible moral imperatives. (similarity 0.81)
• Groups may posture sacred claims that are not deeply held identity commitments (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Perceived out-group threat amplifies ritual-driven sacralization of values. #corroborates (0.95) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 45
• Participation in religious ritual creates sacred values, especially under group threat. #corroborates (0.92) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 16
• Ritual participation plus perceived threat converts disputed preferences into sacred values. #expands (0.90) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 58
• Religious ritual converts secular values into sacred ones that harden conflict #expands (0.85)
• External threat drives groups to ritualize preferences into sacred values #corroborates (0.82) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 14
• Religious ritual participation increases sacred values even on non-religious topics. #expands (0.78) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 29
• Participation in religious ritual, not broader psychological traits, predicts sacred values. #expands (0.75) — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 26
• Moralizing gods and costly rituals coevolved to boost in-group cooperation and out-compete rivals. #expands (0.74) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 431
• Sacred values bind group identity and give groups advantage through non-rational commitment. #expands (0.72) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 264
• Groups may posture sacred claims that are not deeply held identity commitments #qualifies (0.72) — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 85