Levyna Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion

28/08/2026

Back from summer hiatus with a new paper! ☀️

Why don’t free-riders simply fake costly signals of commitment and enjoy the benefits of cooperation?

Our new paper suggests that the answer may partly lie in how people estimate the costs and benefits of signaling. Across three preregistered studies, we find evidence that committed and uncommitted individuals can perceive the same signal differently, helping explain how costly signals can remain reliable indicators of commitment.

Read the full paper here: https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/12/1/164453/218774/Differential-Cost-Benefit-Estimation-Stabilizes

09/07/2026

🌍 LEVYNA in Mauritius!

Earlier this year, members of the LEVYNA Lab travelled to Mauritius for an exciting period of fieldwork combining surveys, experiments, and ethnographic research.

Our first project, led by PhD student Anese Shabani Vikaei as part of her dissertation, involved survey-based research with members of the Muslim community. Alongside this, we collected experimental data for a broader cross-cultural project led by Martin Lang, examining how cognition and decision-making vary across cultures.

Postdoctoral researcher Feryl Badiani coordinated the fieldwork on site, helping oversee data collection, manage research logistics, and ensure the smooth implementation of both projects.

Beyond data collection, the team also conducted ethnographic observations in local mosques and had the opportunity to attend the Theemithi (Tamil Hindu firewalking) festival, gaining valuable insight into Mauritius' rich religious landscape.

None of this would have been possible without our incredible local research assistants. Their dedication, cultural expertise, and countless hours in the field made this work possible. We are deeply grateful to each and every one of them for their hard work and generosity.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed us into your communities. We're excited to share what comes next!

08/06/2026

☀️ LEVYNA at CES Rabat 2026!

Our team had a fantastic time in Rabat presenting research through standard talks, lightning talks, and posters. We also enjoyed catching up with colleagues and making new connections across the cultural evolution community.

A special highlight was our postdoctoral researcher, Feryl Badiani, receiving the CES Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research 2026. The award is presented to a recent graduate who has produced the best PhD dissertation in the field of cultural evolution. Feryl received the award for her thesis, Puzzle of Hinduism: Understanding How Hinduism Boosts the Evolutionary Fitness of Different Linguistic Communities in India.

Congratulations to everyone who represented LEVYNA at CES 2026. We're proud of all the great work being done in the lab! 🎉

02/06/2026

We are delighted to congratulate our postdoctoral researcher, Jana Nenadalová, on receiving the MU Rector’s Award for an Outstanding Doctoral Thesis, one of Masaryk University’s highest recognitions for doctoral research.

Her award-winning dissertation, On the Role of Sensory Deprivation, Social Seclusion, and Authority in the Formation of Religious Experience, explores the social and cognitive processes that shape religious experiences and belief.

This award recognises the originality, quality, and scholarly contribution of her doctoral work, and we are thrilled to see her research receive this distinction.

We are proud to have Jana as part of the LEVYNA team and look forward to seeing where her research takes her next.

Congratulations, Jana, on this well-deserved achievement!

20/05/2026

Why do people keep performing rituals, even when their outcomes are uncertain?

In a new paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, we develop a computational account of ritual performance and persistence. The paper brings together research on reinforcement learning, cultural transmission, uncertainty, emotion, and social feedback.

We argue that rituals can be understood through the interaction of two learning processes. Model-free learning may help explain how rituals become reinforced through repeated affective or social rewards. Model-based learning helps explain how culturally shared expectations shape what people think rituals can achieve and why they continue to matter.

Crucially, these modes of learning interlock. This helps explain how rituals become powerful social technologies for transmitting norms that regulate group cooperation and coordination.

Read the paper here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1n7C34sIRvapER

29/04/2026

🎙️ Our fellow LEVYNAte P. Maňo was a guest speaker at "Nerd Night" at Kafé Lampy in Bratislava.
💡 He talked about what anthropological research on rituals on a remote island looks like and what it says about human societies worldwide.
🔎 The discussion took place in a great atmosphere full of questions, curiosity, and thought-provoking thoughts about science in its most interesting forms!

27/04/2026

How does war affect religiosity beyond the immediate conflict zone?

In a new paper led by Radim Chvaja in cooperation with LEVYNA’s Martin Lang, we examine how the Russian invasion of Ukraine shaped religiosity in Europe.

Using survey data from Czechia and Poland, we find that the impact of the invasion differed across social contexts. In Czechia, religiosity increased among people who already identified as religious, while in Poland, the increase appeared among those who identified as non-religious. Supplementary analyses further suggest that engagement with prayer-related searches rose more strongly in countries geographically and historically closer to the conflict.

The findings suggest that even remote exposure to war may intensify religious engagement, but that this response depends on the religious composition and broader socioecological context of a society.

Read the paper here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2153599X.2025.2601082

24/04/2026

How do cooperators choose to send costly signals of commitment?

In a new paper published in iScience, we examined whether reliable signaling is driven by intuition or by deliberative cost-benefit reasoning.

Across three studies, we found that the answer depends on signal cost. Under time pressure, highly costly signals more strongly separated cooperators from selfish individuals, but these signals were not consistently followed by greater cooperation. When participants had time to deliberate, cooperators preferentially chose low-cost signals, and these signals more reliably predicted later cooperative behavior.

The findings suggest that commitment signaling is shaped by an interaction between intuitive predispositions and context-sensitive deliberation, rather than by signal cost alone.

Read the paper here:
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042%2825%2902810-X

21/04/2026

Why do some people become less religious as societies grow more secure?

A new paper lead by LEVYNA examines whether material security in early adolescence predicts later decreases in belief in God.

Using longitudinal data from young Americans, we find some support for a classic secularization hypothesis, but the story is not as simple as often suggested.

Read more here:

The longitudinal associations of material security and belief in God in young Americans - Volume 8

16/04/2026

An exciting talk coming up with Dr. Paweł Chyc as part of the LEVYNA Speaker Series. See you there!