Levyna Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion

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!

13/04/2026

🌍Our own Peter M. has just finished his visit at the . of Religious Studies at the🇦🇹 University of Vienna as a Ceepus scholar. He taught 🧑‍🏫the Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion course that hosted master students from various backgrounds including psychology, archaeology, or sociology. Peter had a great time discussing evolution, culture, religion, and 🇲🇺Mauritius in the beautiful venue of Vienna University!

https://rw-ktf.univie.ac.at/en/gastwissenschaftlerinnen/peter-mano/

07/04/2026

We have a very exciting talk coming up by Júlia Palik as a part of our LEVYNA speaker series. See you this Monday (13th of April)!

01/04/2026

How does religious conflict reshape moral cognition across cultures?

We're hiring a postdoc to help answer that question! In the CREDO project, we will conduct a large-scale cross-cultural study using computational modeling (DDM, RL) to track moral decision-making across 20 countries.

Interdisciplinary and friendly working environment comes as part of the package 😉

Application deadline: 15.05.2026 👇
https://www.phil.muni.cz/en/careers/available-positions/80767