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Results for “Ceremonial Behavior”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Imitation of the sequential structure of actions by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Imitation was studied experimentally by allowing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) to observe alternative patterns of actions for opening a specially designed "artificial fruit." Like problematic foods primates deal with naturally, with the test fruit several defenses had to be removed to gain access to an edible core, but the sequential order and method of defense removal could be systematically varied. Each subject repeatedly observed 1 of 2 alternative techniques for removing each defense and 1 of 2 alternative sequential patterns of defense removal. Imitation of sequential organization emerged after repeated cycles of demonstration and attempts at opening the fruit. Imitation in chimpanzees may thus have some power to produce cultural convergence, counter to the supposition that individual learning processes corrupt copied actions. Imitation of sequential organization was accompanied by imitation of some aspects of the techniques that made up the sequence.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Indigenous practices of Saudi girls in Riyadh during their menstrual period.

The objective of this study was to identify the indigenous menstrual hygiene practice of Saudi girls in Riyadh. A total of 600 girls aged from 11 years to 18 years were selected from outpatient clinics at three different hospitals in Riyadh. Data were collected using a structured interview. The results revealed that nearly two-thirds of the girls avoided certain foods, drinks and activities, including showering and performing perineal care, and practised several indigenous rituals during the period. Mother, religious books and sisters were the main sources of the girls' infomation. The study suggests that nurses and health care providers should use all available opportunities to educate young girls about menstruation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

A proposed bioanthropological approach linking ritual and opiate addiction.

This paper presents preliminary conjectures about possible neurobiological relationships among seemingly disparate phenomena: religious rituals, native curing therapies, and the pharmacodynamic, psychological, and sociocultural components of opiate addiction. Central to the discussion is an analysis of the function of opiate receptors, the endogenous neurochemical that binds to opiate receptors, and the impact of exogenous opiates on human behavior. Throughout the paper a synthetic but admittedly speculative approach is employed.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Rituals, stereotypy and compulsive behavior in animals and humans.

From a survey of the behavior of animals in the wild, in captivity, under the influence of psychoactive drugs and in a model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), we identify that the behavioral repertoire invariably includes motor rituals, and that such rituals are performed at a few specific locations/objects in the environment with an orderly transition amongst locations/objects. The concept and parameters of this stable organization of rituals in time and space were used to analyze rituals of OCD patients, compared with control individuals performing the same actions (e.g. car locking). It was found that human rituals also converged to a few places/objects where repetitive acts were performed in a regular order, with the acts in OCD patients overlapping with those of control individuals. Across a very diverse range of animals and conditions, motor rituals are thus characterized by their close linkage to a few environmental locations and the repeated performance of relatively few acts. Such similarity in form may reflect a similarity in the mechanisms that control motor rituals in both animals and humans.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Altered states of consciousness and short-term psychological after-effects induced by the first time ritual use of ayahuasca in an urban context in Brazil.

This report describes psychological assessments of the first time ritual use of ayahuasca in the religious groups União do Vegetal and Santo Daime. Nineteen subjects who tried the beverage in Santo Daime rituals and nine subjects who tried it in União do Vegetal rituals were evaluated one to four days before their first ayahuasca experience in life and one to two weeks after this experience. Semistructured interviews and a structured psychiatric scale were used in the first evaluation to elicit set variables concerning attitudes towards the ayahuasca experience and to elicit mental health status. Mental health status was reassessed in the second evaluation, which also included a semistructured interview concerning the phenomenology of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). Predominantly positive expectancies concerning the ayahuasca experience were the most prominent findings concerning set variables. Visual phenomena, numinousness, peacefulness, insights and a distressing reaction were the most salient ASC experiences. A significant reduction of the intensity of minor psychiatric symptoms occurred in the Santo Daime group after the hallucinogen experience. Subjects in both groups reported behavioral changes towards assertiveness, serenity and vivacity/joy. The set and setting hypothesis, suggestibility processes, as well as the supposed unique effects of ayahuasca are used in discussing these findings.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

The coming of age of self-mutilation.

Self-mutilation (SM), the deliberate, nonsuicidal destruction of one's own body tissue, occurs in such culturally sanctioned practices as tattooing; body piercing; and healing, spiritual, and order-preserving rituals. As a symptom, it has typically been regarded as a manifestation of borderline behavior and misidentified as a suicide attempt. It has begun to attract mainstream media attention, and many more who suffer from it are expected to seek treatment. This review suggests that SM can best be understood as a morbid self-help effort providing rapid but temporary relief from feelings of depersonalization, guilt, rejection, and boredom as well as hallucinations, sexual preoccupations, and chaotic thoughts. Major SM includes infrequent acts such as eye enucleation and castration, commonly associated with psychosis and intoxication. Stereotypic SM includes such acts as head banging and self-biting most often accompanying Tourette's syndrome and severe mental retardation. Superficial/moderate SM includes compulsive acts such as trichotillomania and skin picking and such episodic acts as skin-cutting and burning, which evolve into an axis I syndrome of repetitive impulse dyscontrol with protean symptoms.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Behaviour therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: a decade of progress.

OBJECTIVE: To review the last decade of behaviour therapy research in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). METHOD: The most salient research was analyzed. RESULTS: Many studies confirmed that exposure and ritual prevention (ERP) effectively reduced compulsive rituals and obsessive thoughts in most patients in all age groups, although a minority of the patients did not complete treatment. Gains persisted to follow-up 2 to 6 years later in several countries. Improvement after ERP generalized to obsessive-compulsive beliefs, mood, work, and social adjustment, and was accompanied by reduction in cerebral blood flow in the right caudate nucleus. Teaching patients how to prevent relapse seems to reduce the risk of recurrence. ERP yields slightly more improvement than does appropriate antidepressant medication and is followed by far less relapse after treatment has stopped, so ERP may be more cost-effective in the long term. Antidepressant medication is a useful adjunct to ERP when OCD is accompanied by comorbid depression. The therapist now tends to teach patients how to carry out self-exposure and self-imposed ritual prevention, rather than to impose ERP on them. Self-help manuals help patients to do this, and computer aids to allow patients to learn how to do ERP at home have been valuable in pilot studies. Cognitive therapy without ERP was as useful as ERP. CONCLUSION: ERP is of lasting value for OCD. Long-term cost-effectiveness comparisons are needed of self-administered ERP versus cognitive therapy and versus medication. Studies are also needed of brief psychological treatment for depression comorbid with OCD.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Ritualistic behavior: breaking the cycle.

1. Recent studies reveal that OCD occurs at rates of 25 to 60 times greater than previous estimates. 2. Currently, biological theories of causation have been cited by multiple researchers. 3. Behavioral therapy and medication therapy have emerged as treatments of choice in OCD.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Management of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by compulsive rituals such as excessive washing and repeated checking and phobic avoidance. The treatment of choice is behavioural psychotherapy, namely exposure and response prevention.

Antidepressive Agents↗
PubMed1997

The minyan as a psychological support system.

Most individuals participate in some of the rituals and/or regular activities of religious institutions such as churches or synagogues. Through such involvements, people are offered vital assistance in dealing with developmental changes, opportunities for personal development and for group support, and more generally, a sense of continuity and of meaning in life. This paper deals with only one small aspect of Jewish observance, an aspect of the centuries-old required weekly prayer groups-the minyan. The prime emphasis resides in the rarely recognized, nonliturgical dimension of this small group experience. Using psychoanalysis in the sense of a general psychology as background, I have considered the minyan as combining elements of a psychological support system and of a small group. In addition to the gratification of affiliative needs (social hunger) and the countering of loneliness and of isolation, this group experience helps its members maintain an intergenerational sense of personal identity and of self-esteem. In the face of marked life stressors such as death in the family, religious institutions such as the minyan, with its prescribed ritual steps for grieving (i.e., kaddish), fulfill especially significant preventive and restitutive mental health functions. I have also hypothesized that on a covert, fantasy level, the caring and nurturing family-like weekday minyan may even represent a mother-symbol (mother group) in line with people's universal need to establish a psychological union with others, thus restoring an earlier, conflict-free state of the child-mother bond. In an extended societal sense, the earlier emphasis in Western cultures on the virtual worship of individuality, autonomy, and independence has given way recently to a renewed appreciation of cooperation, communalism, and altruism. The minyan, as a small religious communal aggregate with its inherent climate of mutuality, reciprocity, and continuity, has, in a sense, anticipated these new developments. For as Herbert Simon (1990), the Nobel laureate, observed, "It is of no little moment for the human future whether people are necessarily and consistently selfish...or whether there is a significant place for altruism in the scheme of human behavior."

Ceremonial Behavior↗