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Healing rituals and dietary practices as cultural super-attractors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2026
Abstract
Singh’s account explains cultural super-attractors via subjective selection. I extend it to healing rituals and dietary practices, including fasting calendars, sacred or taboo foods, detox narratives, probiotic beliefs, and ceremonial eating. I map these packages to complexity and robustness, specify control-seeking and hedonic mechanisms, derive testable predictions, and outline cross-cultural studies that distinguish satisfaction from objective efficacy for public health.
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- Open Peer Commentary
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- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press
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Target article
Subjective selection, super-attractors, and the origins of the cultural manifold
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Author response
Goals, power, and selection: Foundational issues in the naturalistic study of culture