Synchrony vs. pain in males and females: an examination of differential effects on social bonding in a naturally occurring ritual

ABSTRACT

Rituals are thought to bind individuals together. Rituals that are perceived high in pain and behavioral synchrony increase social bonding, but the relative contribution of perceived pain vs. synchrony is unexplored. In addition, gender differences are rarely investigated in experimental studies of ritual, despite known gender differences in ritual participation, emotional processing, social bonding and pain processing. The current study uses data from 137 participants in a naturally occurring high ordeal ritual lasting 10 days. Because all individuals participated in multiple rituals varying in perceived pain and synchrony, it was possible to separate the unique and joint effects in a natural context. We found strong bonding effects for rituals perceived as painful, but not for synchrony. Rituals rated as higher in level of pain (involving cuts, piercings and burns) were associated with greater self-reported social bonding. Gender moderated these effects: Women reported stronger bonding after participating in non-synchronous rituals perceived higher in pain, whereas men reported greater bonding after synchronous activities with more perceived pain. These findings suggest that pain-related processes are a more potent social bonding mechanism than synchrony in naturally occurring high ordeal rituals, but that perceived pain may have different signaling functions depending on the gender of performers.

KEYWORDS:

• Pain
• synchrony
• social bonding
• ritual
• cultural evolution
• gender
• costly signaling

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Kathu Shrine and all the spirit mediums for their generous support of this study and their willingness to participate. The study design has been approved by the School of Psychology Human Ethics Committee under delegated authority of Victoria University of Wellington’s Human Ethics Committee (#0000020925). We would like to thank Rita McNamara, Joseph Bulbulia, Hazel Godfrey, Johannes Karl, Dimitris Xygalatas, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on a previous version of this manuscript. RF designed the study, developed the material, ran the analyses and wrote the first draft. JK provided cultural advice, adapted and translated all the materials, and coordinated the data collection. The authors agree on the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It is important to highlight that pain is a subjective experience that, while often associated with tissue damage, may not correspond to the state or damage of body tissue nor the activation of nerve cells indicating noxious stimulation (Moseley, 2007). Experimental studies have induced physical discomfort (e.g., cold pressor task, squatting) to simulate possibly painful physical experiences. In field settings, individuals often use piercings, walking over hot coals, cuttings, burnings or other activities, that an outsider would designate as painful because they involve damage to body tissue. Here, we use the term pain when referring to events that outsiders would consider as painful (including pain ratings by observers), but it is important to emphasize that these ratings were derived from observers based on the features of the ritual that indicated high ordeal and physical discomfort.

2 An important element of synchronous action for social bonding is that synchrony typically shows the strongest effects on social bonding when the action involves shared intentions—individuals coordinate their actions to achieve a joint goal (see Reddish et al., 2013; Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007; for a general review see Mogan et al., 2017). Experiments in which individuals do not share goals, are not required to coordinate their actions continuously or have limited visual feedback on their joint action may show weaker or no synchrony effects (see for example, Davis et al., 2015).

3 Ritual has been a central focus of anthropological and sociological research. Given the diversity of approaches, a comprehensive review is beyond the scope of the current study and here we focus on discussions of ritual and power dynamics in relation to social bonding, with a particular emphasis on spirit possession rituals (since the ritual studied involves spirit possession, see below).

4 In pain research it is important to distinguish pain thresholds (the level of stimulation at which pain is subjectively reported) and pain tolerance (the length of time that a person is willing to experience the subjective state of pain). Unfortunately, this distinction is often conflated in empirical research on ritual. One important question is whether ritual increases pain thresholds (e.g., people do not perceive pain) or participants do perceive pain but are willing to endure it for longer.

5 Our total population size for the study was 271 individuals. We aimed to collect data from five rituals, allowing us to sample a maximum of 54.2 participants per ritual.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by a Marie Curie Cofund Senior Fellowship to the first author.