Ritual in development: Improving children’s ability to delay gratification

Thesis

To be accepted into social groups, individuals must internalise and reproduce appropriate group conventions, such as rituals. The high fidelity copying of such rigid and socially stipulated behavioural sequences places heavy demands on executive function abilities. Given previous research showing that challenging executive functioning also improves it, it was hypothesised that prolonged engagement in ritualistic behaviours would improve executive functioning in children, in turn improving ...

Expand abstract

Authors: Rybanska, V

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: cross-cultural psychology; ritual; future discounting; delay of gratification; experimental anthropology; executive function
• Subjects: Developmental psychology--Research; Cognition in children; Cognitive science