Episode #200: Dr. Harvey Whitehouse

In Episode #200, anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse sits down with Osi to discuss how humanity's evolved psychological biases—conformism, religiosity, and tribalism—have shaped our history, driven monumental achievements, and now imperil our future, while offering insights for addressing today’s global crises.Harvey Whitehouse holds a statutory Chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Harvey is one of the founders of the cognitive science of religion field. He is especially well known for his theory of “modes of religiosity” that has been the subject of extensive critical evaluation and testing by anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and evolutionary theorists. The modes theory proposes that the frequency and emotionality of rituals determines the scale and structure of religious organizations: low-frequency, highly arousing rituals bind together small but very cohesive groups of participants; high-frequency, less emotionally intense rituals create large anonymous communities that are more diffusely integrated.