Papers by Vladimír Bahna
Slovenský Národopis, 2016
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion, 2015
This paper deals with the phenomena where culture and society influence the content of personal e... more This paper deals with the phenomena where culture and society influence the content of personal experiences. It confronts psychological knowledge about autobiographical memory and folkloristic theories associated with the concept of memorate – a personal experience narrative which is build upon a supernatural belief. Autobiographical memory is not a vessel in which static information is deposited and later recalled; rather it is a dynamic process of repeated construction and reconstruction of memories, which is subject to many internal and external influences. Ideas and concepts, widespread in society, dreams and beliefs, stories and experiences of others, can be, and often are incorporated into autobiographical memories. Similarly folklorists found out that memorates (personal experience narratives) often consist of traditional elements. The author of this paper argues that the theory of Lauri Honko regarding the formation and transmission of memorates (1964) largely coheres with p...
World literature studies, 2011
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2015
This paper explores the cognitive foundations of vampirism beliefs. The occurrence of beliefs of ... more This paper explores the cognitive foundations of vampirism beliefs. The occurrence of beliefs of the dead rising from graves and returning to harm the living across many cultures indicates that this concept has features that make it successful in the process of cultural transmission.
This paper deals with the phenomena where culture and society influence the content of personal e... more This paper deals with the phenomena where culture and society influence the content of personal experiences. It confronts psychological knowledge about autobiographical memory and folkloristic theories associated with the concept of memorate -a personal experience narrative which is built upon a supernatural belief. Autobiographical memory is not a vessel in which static information is deposited and later recalled; rather, it is a dynamic process of repeated construction and reconstruction of memories, which is subject to many internal and external influences. Ideas and concepts, widespread in society, dreams and beliefs, stories and experiences of others, can be, and often are incorporated into autobiographical memories. Similarly folklorists have shown that memorates (personal experience narratives) often consist of traditional elements. This paper argues that the theory formulated by Lauri Honko regarding the formation and transmission of memorates is largely coherent with psychological understanding of autobiographical memory. This kind of social contagion of memory suggests the possibility of a specific form of experientally-based cultural transmission of beliefs and concepts.
In this article psychological knowledge of the functioning of autobiographical me mory is confron... more In this article psychological knowledge of the functioning of autobiographical me mory is confronted with folkloristic theories associated with the concept of memorat, which designates narrations of personal experiences with supernatural beings and phenomena. Human memory is not a vessel in which static information is deposited and later retrieved, rather it is a dynamic process of repeated construction and recon struction of memories, which is subject to outside influences. This knowledge corre sponds to folklorists' findings: that the elements of traditional ideas are already part of narratives about personal experiences and are not inevitably a mere result of the changes in stories during their further transmission. The author links the findings of the folklorist Lauri Honko (1964) with the present-day knowledge of psychology con cerning so-called false memories. Subsequently, using the results of his own research focused on memorats, he documents this connection.
The theme of this study is the explanation of cultural development from the standpoint of Darwini... more The theme of this study is the explanation of cultural development from the standpoint of Darwinian evolutionary theory. The author concerns himself with meme theory (memetics) and the arguments of its critics, and seeks to evaluate some of them. He considers the current state of scientific discourse regarding the application of Darwin's theory of natural selection to cultural evolution. The concept of natural selection, however, is not an essential part either of evolutionary theory or of its application to culture. Hence the author also gives attention to socalled neutral evolution. At the conclusion of his study he considers the emergence of new cultural variants and their preservation in memory systems in dependence on concrete socio-cultural conditions. In this respect cultural evolution is distinguished fundamentally from the classical evolutionary models. The algorithm of natural selection (heredity, variability, selection) is only one of the mechanisms to which cultural evolution is subject. Cultural development therefore cannot be modelled only by means of natural selection, but at the same time it would be a mistake to exclude it from this model.
ABSTRAKT St(rdia kor.rfror-rtuje psychologickd poznatk,v o fungovani autobiografickej pamar: s et... more ABSTRAKT St(rdia kor.rfror-rtuje psychologickd poznatk,v o fungovani autobiografickej pamar: s etr-rografickymi ddtami, stivisiacirni s pribehn'ri o nadprirodzenych bytostiach a pokfSa sa tak nairtnft psycho-sociilne faktorl', ktore vvsvetLujir istd aspekty Sirenia nadprirodzenych predstiiv v spolodrrosti a zdrover\ poodhalirjLi v5eobecne mecl'ranizml' fungovania autobiografickej par-ndti. Cielon-r je poukdzat na priklade tradidnych nadprirodzenl,ch predstdv zniirnych zo slover.rskiho rurdlneho prostredia, ako autobiograficke pribehy inych I'udi a socidlny kontext tychto pribehov ovpl,vr.-r\uju forrnovanie naSich vlastnych autobiografii. V, skum, ktorli Sttidia prezentuje, sfiasnd pozr.ratkv psychol6gie pan-riiti, por-rkazuju konkretr-re na fakt, Ze l'udskri pamrit nie je n6doba, do ktorej sa vkladaju a nesk6r vyberajt statickd irrfornrdcie, ale Ze ide o dynarrick! proces opakovaneho kon5truovania a rekonStruovatr ia spomir-nok, ktory podlieha vonkajSim vplyvorn.
The first issue of the Ethnological Disputes this year is dedicated to the education in the field... more The first issue of the Ethnological Disputes this year is dedicated to the education in the fields of ethnology and social anthropology and to the place of these disciplines in the society. This topic seems to us important due to social engagement of the scientists, but also in connection with recent changes of the Slovak society. We tried to represent as wide a set of the questions concerning education in ethnology and social anthropology as possible. We believe that the mirror that these disciplines reflecting social processes offer to the society depends essentially on the ways of teaching them.
Publications by Vladimír Bahna
How do we discern conspiracy theories?, 2022
Psychological research shows that belief in conspiracy theories is related to the rejection of co... more Psychological research shows that belief in conspiracy theories is related to the rejection of coincidence by an inclination towards explanations that offer intentional action as the cause. This association increases significantly in the context of experiencing uncertainty, lack of control, feelings of threat, and powerlessness. In this respect, conspiracy theories are similar to many supernatural explanations. They are stories. That is representations of events that are populated by actors whose actions and motivations offer ultimate causality. Supernatural and conspiratorial beliefs, though each in a different way, attribute extraordinary competencies and powers to some protagonists that enable the creation of causally coherent stories. As narratives, conspiracy theories, compared to their non-conspiratorial alternatives, are at an advantage in that they please the intuitions which human mind uses to represent social reality while at the same time they address true or believed social conflicts, animosities, or tensions. The author of this paper proposes that it is the narrativity and tellability of conspiracy theories that explain part of their successful social spread and popularity.
Slovak Ethnology, 2022
Although ritual has been a subject of interest in the social sciences since their inception, it r... more Although ritual has been a subject of interest in the social sciences since their inception, it remains a fruitful topic, rich in new insights. However, rituals have been primarily studied within social anthropology, religious studies and sociology. Only in the last few decades have psychologists begun to focus on rituals more significantly. In this context, the evolutionary and cognitivist approach, of which the work included in this volume is a sample, is novel not only for the empirical insights it provides but also for its scientific interdisciplinarity and integration. For an illustration, one need only look at two recent books on rituals written by renowned anthropologists Harvey Whitehouse (2021) and Dimitris Xygalatas (2022) to realize to what extent psychological research is being integrated into the study of ritual. It has long been characteristic of the social sciences that new approaches have meant a rejection of the previous ones. Thus, scholarly paradigms have changed almost like architectural or artistic styles over time. The cognitive-evolutionary approach, though, not only integrates science across disciplines but also integrates social scientific knowledge and theories throughout the history of the discipline. Hence, recent research informed by the insights of psychology or biology is directly related to the great names of anthropology and sociology, such as Émile Durkheim, Bronislaw Malinowski, Victor Turner and many others.
Slovak Ethnology, 2022
Current adaptationist approaches view religion as a system of beliefs, behaviours, social norms, ... more Current adaptationist approaches view religion as a system of beliefs, behaviours, social norms, taboos and collective rituals, which enforce social cohesion and intragroup solidarity that lead to group cooperation and coordination. These prosocial effects then translate into success in between-group competition. Cultural group selection is seen as the process that led to the emergence of religion as a cultural adaptation that enables the persistence of cooperative social groups. This article applies this theoretical approach to the so-called Old Believers: a diverse and fractioned branch of Russian Orthodox Christianity, whose history is marked by apocalyptic worldviews and antagonism towards state powers and the Russian Orthodox Church. Since their split with the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17 th century, the Old Believers evolved towards egalitarian communities, asceticism, isolationism and traditionalism. The author argues that Old Believers can be in many respects viewed as prototypic examples of how religious systems promote social cohesion, in-group solidarity, identity and commitment. Yet, contrary to what the theory assumes (or at least emphasizes), the very same collective rituals, social norms, supernatural beliefs and taboos, and their systemic interdependence, can lead to group harmful outcomes (e.g., splintering, excessive celibacy, mass suicide). In other words, high levels of in-group prosociality linked to religion cannot be simply viewed as exclusively mediating group benefits.
Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolutionary perspectives suggest that participation in collective rituals may serve important co... more Evolutionary perspectives suggest that participation in collective rituals may serve important communicative functions by signaling practitioners' commitment to the community and its values. While previous research has examined the effects of ritual signals at the individual and collective level, there has been limited attention directed to the impact of socio-environmental factors on the quality of ritual signaling. We examined this impact in the context of the Thaipusam Kavadi, a collective ritual performed by Tamil Hindus worldwide that involves body piercings and other costly activities. We show that participants' relative position in the social hierarchy systematically affects the form of ritual signaling. Specifically, we found that low-status participants are more likely to engage in signaling modalities that require somatic and opportunity costs in the form of body piercings and cumulative effort, while high-status individuals are more likely to use financial capital, in the form of more elaborate material offerings to the deity. Moreover, signaling in each particular modality is stronger among individuals who participate in more public (but not private) rituals, corresponding to their long-term commitment to the community. In sum, our results demonstrate that social hierarchies exact unequal requirements on ritual participants, who in turn modify their signaling strategies accordingly.
A B S T R A C T Behavioural synchronization has been shown to facilitate social bonding and coope... more A B S T R A C T Behavioural synchronization has been shown to facilitate social bonding and cooperation but the mechanisms through which such effects are attained are poorly understood. In the current study, participants interacted with a pre-recorded confederate who exhibited different rates of synchrony, and we investigated three mechanisms for the effects of synchrony on likeability and trusting behaviour: self-other overlap, perceived cooperation, and opioid system activation measured via pain threshold. We show that engaging in highly synchronous behaviour activates all three mechanisms, and that these mechanisms mediate the effects of synchrony on liking and investment in a Trust Game. Specifically, self-other overlap and perceived cooperation mediated the effects of synchrony on interpersonal liking, while behavioural trust was mediated only by change in pain threshold. These results suggest that there are multiple compatible pathways through which synchrony influences social attitudes, but endogenous opioid system activation, such as β-endorphin release, might be important in facilitating economic cooperation.
Books by Vladimír Bahna
Book Reviews by Vladimír Bahna
Slovak Ethnology, 2022
is one of the leading anthropologists and one of the co-founders of the research field called the... more is one of the leading anthropologists and one of the co-founders of the research field called the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and is a tenured professor at the University of Oxford. He is one of those scholars who have dedicated a big part of their careers to the cumulative development of one theory. In his case, it is the modes of religiosity theory, which he outlined in three previous books (Whitehouse, 1995, 2000, 2004) and numerous articles and book chapters. is also applies to his most recent book, which follows a long 17-year gap since the last one. However, it is needless to assume that this is to be a tedious repetition. On the contrary, it is an engaging, thought-provoking and rich investigation that combines psychological experiments, ethnography, big-data mining, historical and archaeological data and computer modelling. Compared to Modes of Religiosity (Whitehouse, 2004), e Ritual Animal is, in a sense, also a picture of how the discipline of CSR has changed over the past 15-20 years, moving from cognitivist theorizing and the first shy experiments to fully blown multidisciplinary and methodological diverse endeavours. In this respect, e Ritual Animal is a synthesis of the work of not just Harvey Whitehouse but also a wider group of his collaborators. ose who have followed his work on a regular basis will hardly be surprised. On the other hand, 15 years ago, one only had to follow the work of some 30 or so scholars to have an almost complete picture of what was going on in CSR. Today, something like that is virtually impossible. Synthesizing the works of concrete research programmes is, therefore, both essential and refreshing. I think Whitehouse's theory is relatively known even outside of CSR but, for the sake of this review, I will briefly outline its main claim, namely that the cross-cultural variability of collective rituals is not arbitrary but tends to cluster around two divergent positions: highly arousing (mostly dysphoric) but not so often performed rituals and frequent and emotionally rather flat rituals. The former ritual mode is typical of the so-called imagistic mode, which is also associated with episodic memories, individually generated meanings, passive or absent leadership, intense social cohesion, small scale, noncentralized structure and low degree of uniformity, while the latter mode is typical of the doctrinal mode, which, in contrast, relies on semantic schemes and socially learned ritual meanings, high levels of uniformity, centralized structure and diffuse social cohesion, to mention some of the main psychological and socio-political features of the divergent modes. The crucial point of the theory is not just the existence of these two modes but its claim to predict the transition between these two modes. For instance, one such prediction is dealing with imagistic splinter groups that emerge within doctrinal religions, which, under the right conditions, are later reintegrated. A major focus is pointed towards predictions of the theory, which relate to historical increases in population size. The theory argues that the scale of cooperation under the imagistic mode is limited by the size of the ritually bonded groups, while the doctrinal mode enables much wider forms of cooperation both in size and variety. This connects the modes theory to human social evolution and the growth of social complexity of human societies associated. Using historical and archaeological evidence, Whitehouse shows that the Neolithic rise of agriculture was accompanied by the emergence of rituals with doctrinal features
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Papers by Vladimír Bahna
Publications by Vladimír Bahna
Books by Vladimír Bahna
Book Reviews by Vladimír Bahna