From an evolutionary perspective, large-scale human groups face an adaptive challenge: maintaining cohesion beyond the limits of one-to-one grooming. Cultural practices that recruit evolved bonding systems may help solve this problem by harnessing mu-opioid psychobiological mechanisms. Religious rituals are cultural practices that consistently promote social cohesion, and here we report a pre-registered large-scale field study examining psychobiological mechanisms underlying these rituals. Participants were tested in the United Kingdom and Brazil at 24 ritual sites (N = 265), with measures taken pre- and post-ritual. Results showed that levels of social bonding (5.4% increase, rR = 0.30) and positive affect (13.1% increase, rR = 0.27) were higher after ritual participation. Importantly, increased social bonding was independently predicted by increases in pain threshold (a proxy for mu-opioid activation; β = 0.13, R2 = 0.02), positive affect (β = 0.25) and connection to a higher power (β = 0.15), even after controlling for country, gender, age and religiosity (R2 = 0.15). This multi-site field study provides experimental yet naturalistic evidence that religious rituals recruit an evolved mu-opioid-based affiliation system that may help sustain cohesion in large congregations, supporting the brain-opioid theory of social attachment.

Participation in religion has frequently been associated with high levels of wellbeing.Few studies, however, have directly compared the effect of participating in a religious versus a secular congregation.The creation of the Sunday Assembly, in effect a secular 'church', has created the opportunity to make direct comparisons between religious and non-religious congregations.We hypothesize that a coherent moral narrative and specific moral values contribute to increased wellbeing for religious relative to secular traditions.Through a survey of three traditions (conservative religious, mainstream religious, and secular) we compared quality of life (QoL), levels of social bonding, and moral thinking.Connectedness to one's congregation was positively associated with overall QoL, as was the degree to which participants believed their values matched those of others in their group.Actual within-group similarity of moral values was not related to connectedness or QoL.Religious theological traditions, compared with secular, predicted social and environmental health, but not other QoL domains.There were no differences between religious and secular participants for within-group moral similarity, although religious participants held a distinct set of moral values not found among secular participants.These results suggest believing one shares moral values with one's congregation may contribute to QoL.Religious congregations appear to promote a unique moral perspective not found in secular congregations, and to promote wellbeing in some areas of life.The cause of this difference in wellbeing is unclear, although the moral values promoted by religion may be a contributing factor, and further study in this area is warranted.

Religion is often understood to play a positive role in shaping moral attitudes among believers. We assessed the relationship between church members’ levels of felt connectedness to their respective congregations and perceived similarity in personal and congregational moral values, and whether there was a relationship between these and the amount of time spent in synchronous movement or singing during worship. The similarity between personal and perceived congregational moral importance (the importance assigned to different moral items) was correlated with feelings of closeness to one’s congregation but not by the amount of time spent in synchronous movement or singing. Differences in moral foundations scores and in moral importance of specific issues were found between different theological traditions. These findings demonstrate that, for churchgoers, there is a relationship between the use of music or synchronous movement in a church service and feelings of social bonding and there is also a relationship between the degree to which churchgoers identify with their church community and the degree to which they believe their priorities match those of their church. Furthermore, differences in theological tradition appear to be reflected in differences in moral values.

Psychology has an interest in the ways in which religion can aid coping with life's adverse events, as most, perhaps all, individuals will face trauma or adversity at some point in life. The COVID19 pandemic has created adversity for individuals and societies globally and has for many been the cause of traumatic events. Religious coping in the face of crisis is not merely a contemporary phenomenon. This paper argues that several religious coping mechanisms can be found within the texts of Psalms 90, 91 and 92 of the Hebrew Bible. These psalms may represent a community's attempt to cope with the aftermath of a society-wide traumatic event, such as the 6th Century BCE Exile to Babylon. This paper reads these psalms through the lens of coping theory, explores how a traumatic event may have influenced their composition, and considers ways in which they might be used in pastoral situations today.

Religious rituals are associated with health benefits, potentially produced via social bonding. It is unknown whether secular rituals similarly increase social bonding. We conducted a field study with individuals who celebrate secular rituals at Sunday Assemblies and compared them with participants attending Christian rituals. We assessed levels of social bonding and affect before and after the rituals. Results showed the increase in social bonding taking place in secular rituals is comparable to religious rituals. We also found that both sets of rituals increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, and that the change in positive affect predicted the change in social bonding observed. Together these results suggest that secular rituals might play a similar role to religious ones in fostering feelings of social connection and boosting positive affect.

Abstract Both the Scriptures and the traditions of the Christian faith can be seen to promote animal welfare and, paradoxically, also to promote the idea of nonhuman animals existing only for human use. The result is that Christians can have mixed attitudes toward animals, and comparatively few Christians actively work toward improving animal welfare. It is possible that the behavior and activities of individual Christians reflect those values most strongly and frequently expressed in Christian liturgy and worship, which may be more limited than what is present in Scripture or the wider tradition. The psychological theory of reasoned action/planned behavior provides a model that can help explain how these values are translated into action. This article will report on the findings of a pilot study that explored the relationship between the style and content of Christian worship and behavior in related ethical areas and will focus on those results relating specifically to animal welfare. Statistically significant correlations were found between the inclusion (or in this case noninclusion) of animal welfare in church worship, private prayer, and related charitable giving. Participation in certain types of worship was predictive, either positively or negatively, for giving to animal welfare charities. Based on these results, this article explores the possible reasons why liturgy can have a strong influence in forming attitudes and shaping behavior and why some liturgical styles may be more influential than others.