Sacred values function as cognitive structures against ambiguity and uncertainty.
Evidence
The expectation that need for closure would be associated with holding sacred values stems from the notion that people with a high need for closure are motivated by a preference for structure and a low tolerance of ambiguity (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Early anthropological work on sacred values posited that such values serve precisely this need: to structure an inherently ambiguous world to provide a sense of order, meaning, and predictability (Eliade, 1959; Douglas, 1966). — Hammad Sheikh and Jeremy Ginges and Alin Coman and Scott Atran, Religion, group threat and sacred values, 19
Categorization
- DEFINE: Gives a functional definition of why sacred values exist cognitively — as ambiguity-mitigating order devices — that echoes Douglas’s purity/order framework.
- XREF: Eliade and Douglas connect to Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger themes and to the reader’s work on belief rigidity under threat. — connects to: Sacred values are inviolable in conviction yet flexible in application due to interpretive ambiguity — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 549; Sacredness is a functional universal that anchors compliance and resists secular contamination. — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values…, 5
Related
- Sacred values are inviolable in conviction yet flexible in application due to interpretive ambiguity (similarity 0.84)
- Sacredness is a functional universal that anchors compliance and resists secular contamination. (similarity 0.82)
- Sacred values are inviolable in conviction yet flexible in application (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Sacred values are inviolable in conviction yet flexible in application due to interpretive ambiguity
#qualifies(0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 549