Syllabus

Reading list

Read, P.P. (1974/2002). Alive. New York: Harper Perennial

Parrado, N. (2006). Miracle in the Andes: New York: Three Rivers Press

Required:

Evolution of teamwork

Tomasello, M. (2011). Human culture in evolutionary perspective.  In M. Gelfand (Ed.), Advances in Culture and Psychology (pp 5-51).Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ancestralization:

Crawford, C. (1998). Environments and adaptations: Then and now. In C. Crawford & D. L. Krebs (Eds.), Handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 275-302). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

J. Phillips, J. (1996). The hard man: Rugby and the formation of male identity in New Zealand. In J. Nauright, T.J. L. Chandler, (Eds.), Making men: Rugby and masculine identity (pp. 70-90). London: Frank Cass.

Menkiti, I. A. (1984).  Person and Community in African Traditional Thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African Philosophy. An Introduction (pp. 171-181). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Evolution of Taboo:

Chapter 7: Taboo (pp. 133-152) from Radcliff-Brown, A. R. (1952). Structure and function in primitive society. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

Tetlock, P. E. (2003). Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values and taboo cognitions. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 320-324.

 Lienard, P., & Boyer, P. (2006). Whence collective rituals: A cultural selection model of ritualized behavior. American Anthropologist, 108, 814-824. 

 Evolution of complex hunter-gatherer societies:

 Hayden, B. (2003). Shamans, sorcerers, and saints: A prehistory of religion. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books (chapter 5 pp. 122-166: “Complexity emerges in the hunter-gatherer world”).

Ritual and cooperation

 Wiltermuth, S. S. & Heath, C.  (2009). Synchrony and cooperation. Psychological Science, 20, 1-5.

Cohen, E. E. A., Ejsmond-Frey, R., Knight, N. & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2010). Rowers’ high:behavioural synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds. Biology Letters, 6, 106-108

 Power, C. (1998). Old wives tales: The gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy, & C. Knight (Eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language: Social and cognitive bases (pp. 111-129). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Family rituals and routines

 Shuck, L. A., & Bucy, J. E. (1997). Family rituals: Implications for early intervention. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 17, 477-494.

 Spagnola, M., & Feise, B. H. (2007). Family routines and rituals: A context for development in young children. Infants & Young Children, 20, 284-299.

 Rossano, M. J. (2012 in press). The essential role of ritual in the transmission and reinforcement of social norms. Psychological Bulletin.

 Ritual and pain tolerance

 Zeidan, F, Martucci, K. T., Kraft, R. A. et al. (2011). Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 5540 –5548

 Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982). An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and preliminary results. General Hospital Psychiatry, 4, 33-47

 Wacholtz, A. B. & Pargament, K. I. (2005). Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual mediation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 28, 369-384.

 Wiech, K., Farias, M., Kahane, G, Shakel, N. et al., (2008). An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system. Pain, 139, 467-476.

Csikszentmihalyi , M. & Nakamura, J. (2002), The Concept of Flow, In C. R. Snyder ( S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The Handbook of Positive Psychology (pp. 89-92). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 89–105.

Test 1
Test 2

Powerpoints
The opposite of death
God on the mountain
Tomasello
Traditional African sense of self
Rugby
Taboo
Taboo thinking
Collective rituals
Synchrony and cooperation
Rowers and Old wives
Family Rituals1
Family Rituals2
Brain and mindfulness
Mindfulness and chronic pain
Spiritual meditation
Pain and Virgin Mary
Flow

Study Questions
Tomasello
Crawford notes and questions
Traditional sense of self
Rugby
Origins of taboo
Taboo thinking
Collective rituals
Test 1 possible questions
Complex hunter-gatherers
Wiltermuth and Heath
Rowers' high
Old wives tales
Family Rituals questions 1
Family Rituals questions 2
Test 2 question pool
brain and mindfulness
mindfulness and chronic pain
Spiritual meditation
Pain and Virgin Mary
Final question pool