The aim of the present research was to show that collective rituals have the potential to promote not only ingroup favoritism but also outgroup discrimination. In two studies, I used a minimal group setup and had participants engage in a lab-created ritual over the course of seven days. Afterwards, participants came into the lab and performed the actions in their ‘minimal’ group. In Study 1, I found that participants who performed the ad-hoc ritual distrusted outgroup members significantly more than did the control participants. Study 2 extended these findings by looking at ritual intensity as a factor of intergroup bias. Results showed, again, that participants in the two experimental conditions – elaborate and simple ritual – showed greater outgroup discrimination compared to the control, though the data showed no difference in biases between the two experimental conditions. I also found that tolerance to ambiguity moderated the effect of condition on intergroup bias.

The aim of the present research was to show that collective rituals have the potential to promote not only ingroup favoritism but also outgroup discrimination. In two studies, I used a minimal group setup and had participants engage in a lab-created ritual over the course of seven days. Afterwards, participants came into the lab and performed the actions in their ‘minimal’ group. In Study 1, I found that participants who performed the ad-hoc ritual distrusted outgroup members significantly more than did the control participants. Study 2 extended these findings by looking at ritual intensity as a factor of intergroup bias. Results showed, again, that participants in the two experimental conditions – elaborate and simple ritual – showed greater outgroup discrimination compared to the control, though the data showed no difference in biases between the two experimental conditions. I also found that tolerance to ambiguity moderated the effect of condition on intergroup bias.

Petr Černoch - Dining together in the New Testament church from the collective memory perspective - Abstract The collective memory is a relatively new method of studying early Christianity that was taken from the humanities, especially sociology. This diploma thesis chose it as its method of studying the phenomenon of dining together, especially in the manifestation of the ritual of the Eucharist in the 1st century AD. In the first chapter, right after the introduction, this work briefly discussed the development of the study of memory from the collective memory of Mauritius Halwbachs with its social roots. He influenced contemporary memory studies through Jan Assmann, who developed his collective memory of the cultural and described its connection to New Testament research. By defining Cultural Memory, he showed strong links in religion between identity, myth and ritual. The work tried to define the terms myth and ritual with which it operates The next chapter deals with the linguistic and literary world of books, where the words of the establishment of the ritual of the Eucharist are located, discusses their structure and references to food or dining together. The work tried to show the view of the collective memory and thus shed light on some places of tradition and the origin of the ritual of the...