Rearranging Ritual: A Conversation With Connor Wood, PhD
How can we rethink work, play and their incentives in the new landscape of post-COVID America?
1 – 10 of 23 items
Connor Wood, PhD is an expert in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of ritual. Connor’s interests include the evolutionary and cognitive roles of ritual, the influence of religion on health and self-regulation, and the conservative-liberal spectrum in psychology and religion. He received his PhD in religious studies from Boston University in 2016, with a focus on religion and science. Since then, he’s worked as a postdoc and research associate at the Center for Mind and Culture in Kenmore Square. His research spans disciplines and has led to peer-reviewed articles on many aspects of ritual, including self-regulation, shamanism, and the evolutionary foundations of music. Connor writes a blog, Science On Religion, at Patheos.com, and occasionally writes for the Huffington Post. He also studies the relationship between cognitive style and spirituality at the survey website FaithInDepth.org. He blogs at the religion website Patheos, likes to hike mountains, kayak, and make music. He lives in Arlington with his wife.
Connor was a Sinai and Synapses Fellow from 2013-2015.
The Joys and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research
Many of the greatest research breakthroughs come when the insights or discoveries of one field illuminate the problems of another, or when researchers from only semi-related disciplines get together to swap ideas.
The Symbolism of Old Gods and the U.S. Capitol Assault
As people unmoored from vertically transmitted traditions cast desperately around for something to believe in, things are going to get weird. No, scratch that. Weirder.
The Human Need for Culture
People need tribes and culture – things that liberalism tends to dissolve.
Racism and the Professional Class
Who benefits from the policies white progressives are advocating? Are we fighting for racial justice, or for someone else’s justice? Or for no one’s? Until I know, I will be slow to speak and quick to question orthodoxies.
Scientific Conflict About the Coronavirus Lockdown
There is a unique danger of data wonkishness: putting so much stock in scientific abstractions that reality itself becomes invisible.
The Coronavirus Outbreak Shows the Dangers of Social Hypercoherence
One unique danger globalization poses is hypercoherence, or maladaptive syncing between independent parts of a complex system. With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus around the world we’re seeing firsthand some of hypercoherence’s dangers.
Is Morality About Cooperation?
Morality-as-cooperation is pushing researchers in moral psychology to think more rigorously about the evolutionary background and specific processes that might give rise to moral sentiments.
Religion, Belief and Social Connections – An Interview with Jonathan Morgan and Connor Wood
Jonathan Morgan and Connor Wood discuss their new research about religion, cognitive styles, and intuition.
The WEIRDness of Studying Thinking – Religion, Belief and Social Connections, Part 4
Jonathan Morgan and Connor Wood discuss their new research about religion, cognitive styles, and intuition.
