Cognitive Design

Yes, claim the authors of  God is Like a Drug: Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches,  a paper being presented today at an American Sociological Association Meeting.   According to the authors churches with 2000+ members (a megachurch) create a powerful emotional experience using charismatic leaders, stagecraft, small group dynamics, sensory rich pageantry and environments  and deeply positive and consistent messaging.  All key elements of cognitive and experience design. To quote:

Many participants used the word “contagious” to describe the feeling of a megachurch service where members arrive hungry for emotional experiences and leave energized. One church member said, “(T)he Holy Spirit goes through the crowd like a football team doing the wave. …Never seen it in any other church.”

I am interested to hear from readers that attend megachurches. What can they teach us about cognitive design?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2012 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Service Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.