Different communities develop different sets of behaviors for this purpose. By demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice for the community’s well-being, and deference to its authorities and customs, members of a community convince others that they are good types who can be depended on to cooperate for the long term.

Human beings are bound by traditions, and the traditions turn into rituals. The most important, the rituals of life such as birth, marriage, being a man, and being a woman, are fraying in the fifth cycle.

Rites of passage thus coordinate society with respect to what is expected of individuals at various stages of development, and they exist in two forms: temporal (age) and, loosely, merit (earned).