Cleansing as a religious ritual connects individuals to a community of faith and to a tradition that extends both backward and forward in time. In Christianity, baptizing is the way to enter the Christian faith, to include Christ within oneself, and to join the community of Christians. Bathing and cleansing rituals linked to the cycle of life are essential to being Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu. In each religion, cleansing rituals provide individuals with a culturally fluent way of instantiating their group membership and connecting to the sacred. Cultures vary in the extent to which group membership, rather than individuating, is repeatedly triggered. This variability implies that people should be more, or less, likely to chronically think of cleansing as a form of connection, depending on the culture or subculture surrounding them. The alternative to experiencing cleansing as connecting is to consider it as a separating procedure. When experienced as a separating procedure, cleansing takes away rather than connecting the person with the divine and a community of others.
By postulating separation as the mechanism by which cleansing yields psychological outcomes, Lee and Schwarz (L&S) produce order and clarity in an otherwise messy array of findings regarding what cleansing is and what it does. As my opening example suggests, however, this admirable clarity misses the effect of culture on meaning-making. L&S make several assumptions about the link between cleansing and separation as a mental procedure, that cleansing always entails separating, that separating is a separate mechanism from connecting, and that separating is more likely in negative than in positively valenced situations so that separating itself is not valenced, only the consequence of separating is valenced. Each of these core assumptions warrants re-examination using a cultural lens. In this commentary, I use culture-as-situated-cognition theory to do so (Lin, Arieli, & Oyserman, Reference Lin, Arieli and Oyserman2019; Mourey, Lam, & Oyserman, Reference Mourey, Lam and Oyserman2015; Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018; Oyserman & Yan, Reference Oyserman, Yan, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Culture-as-situated cognition theory predicts first that what actions mean is culturally grounded and hence variable and second that mental procedures that are normative (the typical way to think) in a societal culture should feel right, yielding subtle positive valence.
Culture-as-situated-cognition theory starts with the premise that culture is part of human evolution (Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018; Oyserman & Yan, Reference Oyserman, Yan, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Humans need other humans to survive and thrive (Baumeister & Leary, Reference Baumeister and Leary1995; Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019; von Hippel, von Hippel, & Suddendorf, Reference von Hippel, von Hippel, Suddendorf, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanskiin press). This interdependence has shaped human culture in two ways. It required that people be sensitive to the demands of group membership (collectivism). This sensitivity afforded the development of a complex, tool-intensive, and cumulative culture (Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2020). Societal cultures formalize when to fit in, how to signal deservingness and worthiness of others' trust (honor), and when it is possible to do one's own thing (individualism) (Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018). People can innovate, and this innovation can be passed on to others. People do not redevelop or rediscover their societal culture with each generation (Boyd & Richerson, Reference Boyd and Richerson2005). Instead, people acquire culture from others and do so mostly on faith (Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). They accept what members of their ingroups tell them and proceed from there (Boyd & Richerson, Reference Boyd and Richerson2005; Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2019). This tendency to assimilate ingroup knowledge into worldviews allows cumulative culture and increasing cultural complexity (Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2019). It also means that culturally acquired ideas may or may not be optimal and can even be maladaptive (Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). People do things because it is the way we do it, not because it is the best or optimal way. Culture is transmitted both vertically (across generations) and horizontally (among peers, Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019).
A collectivistic mindset is a mental representation that includes goals (fitting in and belonging), content (valuing the act of fitting in), actions (attending to others), and mental procedures (connecting and relating) (Oyserman & Lee, Reference Oyserman and Lee2008). As just described, collectivistic mindsets should be universally available in memory. Situations highlighting group membership (e.g., team sports, patriotic events, and political rivalry) should trigger collectivistic mindsets. Collectivistic mindsets should be more chronically accessible among people living in societies that were historically harsher and more hazardous (e.g., experiencing high pathogen risk, Fincher, Thornhill, Murray, & Schaller, Reference Fincher, Thornhill, Murray and Schaller2008) and stable (e.g., people experienced more cross-generation transmission of culture, Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Collectivistic mindsets should be triggered in situations that people experience as more dangerous. The same evolutionary model clarifies that people also innovate, do something unique, and different, which is how cumulative culture expands. The implication is that individualistic mindsets are also available in memory and will be more chronically accessible in resource-rich societies, in situations that are not experienced as hazardous, and among individuals exposed to fewer cross-generational (vertical) and more to within-generational (horizontal) cultural transmission opportunities.
With regard to cleansing, culture-as-situated cognition theory yields three predictions. First, cleansing should not always be associated with a separating mental procedure. Instead, whether cleansing is experienced as connecting or separating should depend on whether a collectivistic or an individualistic cultural mindset is accessible in the moment of judgment. Second, separation as a mental procedure should not be value-neutral. Instead, whether separating feels subtly fluent or disfluent should depend on whether a collectivistic or an individualistic mindset is more chronically accessible. Third, cleansing should be experienced as positive when it binds people together with one another or with the divine as well as when it signals propriety (doing things the right and honorable way) and when it signals group boundaries, separating people from those who fail to perform the cleansing ritual. Fourth, as exemplified in ritual cleansing, whether separating and connecting are experienced as distinct or related mental procedures should be context-dependent. In cultures and contexts in which collectivism is cued, cleansing is likely to be experienced as both separating the self from others, from impurity, the past, and also connecting the self to others, to purity, and the future. A culture-as-situated cognition lens clarifies how separating and connecting mechanisms can be culturally universal, differ in the likelihood that they will be chronically on the mind, and yield sometimes opposing consequences depending on the context in which they are cued.
Cleansing as a religious ritual connects individuals to a community of faith and to a tradition that extends both backward and forward in time. In Christianity, baptizing is the way to enter the Christian faith, to include Christ within oneself, and to join the community of Christians. Bathing and cleansing rituals linked to the cycle of life are essential to being Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu. In each religion, cleansing rituals provide individuals with a culturally fluent way of instantiating their group membership and connecting to the sacred. Cultures vary in the extent to which group membership, rather than individuating, is repeatedly triggered. This variability implies that people should be more, or less, likely to chronically think of cleansing as a form of connection, depending on the culture or subculture surrounding them. The alternative to experiencing cleansing as connecting is to consider it as a separating procedure. When experienced as a separating procedure, cleansing takes away rather than connecting the person with the divine and a community of others.
By postulating separation as the mechanism by which cleansing yields psychological outcomes, Lee and Schwarz (L&S) produce order and clarity in an otherwise messy array of findings regarding what cleansing is and what it does. As my opening example suggests, however, this admirable clarity misses the effect of culture on meaning-making. L&S make several assumptions about the link between cleansing and separation as a mental procedure, that cleansing always entails separating, that separating is a separate mechanism from connecting, and that separating is more likely in negative than in positively valenced situations so that separating itself is not valenced, only the consequence of separating is valenced. Each of these core assumptions warrants re-examination using a cultural lens. In this commentary, I use culture-as-situated-cognition theory to do so (Lin, Arieli, & Oyserman, Reference Lin, Arieli and Oyserman2019; Mourey, Lam, & Oyserman, Reference Mourey, Lam and Oyserman2015; Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018; Oyserman & Yan, Reference Oyserman, Yan, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Culture-as-situated cognition theory predicts first that what actions mean is culturally grounded and hence variable and second that mental procedures that are normative (the typical way to think) in a societal culture should feel right, yielding subtle positive valence.
Culture-as-situated-cognition theory starts with the premise that culture is part of human evolution (Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018; Oyserman & Yan, Reference Oyserman, Yan, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Humans need other humans to survive and thrive (Baumeister & Leary, Reference Baumeister and Leary1995; Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019; von Hippel, von Hippel, & Suddendorf, Reference von Hippel, von Hippel, Suddendorf, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanskiin press). This interdependence has shaped human culture in two ways. It required that people be sensitive to the demands of group membership (collectivism). This sensitivity afforded the development of a complex, tool-intensive, and cumulative culture (Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2020). Societal cultures formalize when to fit in, how to signal deservingness and worthiness of others' trust (honor), and when it is possible to do one's own thing (individualism) (Oyserman, Reference Oyserman2018). People can innovate, and this innovation can be passed on to others. People do not redevelop or rediscover their societal culture with each generation (Boyd & Richerson, Reference Boyd and Richerson2005). Instead, people acquire culture from others and do so mostly on faith (Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). They accept what members of their ingroups tell them and proceed from there (Boyd & Richerson, Reference Boyd and Richerson2005; Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2019). This tendency to assimilate ingroup knowledge into worldviews allows cumulative culture and increasing cultural complexity (Osiurak & Reynaud, Reference Osiurak and Reynaud2019). It also means that culturally acquired ideas may or may not be optimal and can even be maladaptive (Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). People do things because it is the way we do it, not because it is the best or optimal way. Culture is transmitted both vertically (across generations) and horizontally (among peers, Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019).
A collectivistic mindset is a mental representation that includes goals (fitting in and belonging), content (valuing the act of fitting in), actions (attending to others), and mental procedures (connecting and relating) (Oyserman & Lee, Reference Oyserman and Lee2008). As just described, collectivistic mindsets should be universally available in memory. Situations highlighting group membership (e.g., team sports, patriotic events, and political rivalry) should trigger collectivistic mindsets. Collectivistic mindsets should be more chronically accessible among people living in societies that were historically harsher and more hazardous (e.g., experiencing high pathogen risk, Fincher, Thornhill, Murray, & Schaller, Reference Fincher, Thornhill, Murray and Schaller2008) and stable (e.g., people experienced more cross-generation transmission of culture, Mesoudi, Reference Mesoudi, Cohen and Kitayama2019). Collectivistic mindsets should be triggered in situations that people experience as more dangerous. The same evolutionary model clarifies that people also innovate, do something unique, and different, which is how cumulative culture expands. The implication is that individualistic mindsets are also available in memory and will be more chronically accessible in resource-rich societies, in situations that are not experienced as hazardous, and among individuals exposed to fewer cross-generational (vertical) and more to within-generational (horizontal) cultural transmission opportunities.
With regard to cleansing, culture-as-situated cognition theory yields three predictions. First, cleansing should not always be associated with a separating mental procedure. Instead, whether cleansing is experienced as connecting or separating should depend on whether a collectivistic or an individualistic cultural mindset is accessible in the moment of judgment. Second, separation as a mental procedure should not be value-neutral. Instead, whether separating feels subtly fluent or disfluent should depend on whether a collectivistic or an individualistic mindset is more chronically accessible. Third, cleansing should be experienced as positive when it binds people together with one another or with the divine as well as when it signals propriety (doing things the right and honorable way) and when it signals group boundaries, separating people from those who fail to perform the cleansing ritual. Fourth, as exemplified in ritual cleansing, whether separating and connecting are experienced as distinct or related mental procedures should be context-dependent. In cultures and contexts in which collectivism is cued, cleansing is likely to be experienced as both separating the self from others, from impurity, the past, and also connecting the self to others, to purity, and the future. A culture-as-situated cognition lens clarifies how separating and connecting mechanisms can be culturally universal, differ in the likelihood that they will be chronically on the mind, and yield sometimes opposing consequences depending on the context in which they are cued.
Conflict of interest
None.