How rituals can alleviate loneliness…
December 26, 2023. Revised Friday, December 29, 2023… 4:36 am…because I felt like it.
Rituals provide meaning to life, which reduces loneliness.
Simple, everyday rituals can invite humans to feel less lonely and isolated.
Something as ordinary and mundane straightforward as how you make a cup of tea, or how you choose to eat a biscuit may curb a felt sense of loneliness, when the action is infused with personal meaning.
While most rituals are linked to social, celebratory or religious settings, humans are also quite capable of creating their own personal rituals infused with special, personal meaning.
Professor Thomas Kramer, study co-author, said:
“We found that something as simple as preparing tea in a certain way, as long as it’s interpreted as a ritual, can make the experience more meaningful.This makes people feel less lonely.”
How the study was conducted
The studies asked humans about their degree of loneliness and the role, if any, played by rituals.
The results revealed that the humans who felt the most lonely tended to perform the most rituals and that these helped give meaning to their lives.
In an experiment, the researchers also found that performing rituals helped humans to feel less lonely.
The key is probably in the meaning that is ascribed to the ritual.
Without the meaning, repetitive actions are more likely to be merely habits that are performed without thinking.
Imagine, how, for example, going out for a walk, or reading a specific passage in a particular book… or doing some stretches can be infused with meaning because it is experienced as an intentionally sacred part of your day.
Professor Kramer said:
“Nobody in marketing has ever looked at rituals with private meaning.
A lot has been done on what they do, for example, promoting self-control.
But no one has looked at whether or not idiosyncratic, private rituals provide meaning in the context of consumer products.”
WTF? Consumer products? I’m talking ritual here… not retail…That last comment threatened to induce me to projectile vomit,… but I digress…
The pandemic has naturally left many humans feeling more lonely and isolated than ever before. Apparently, it’s caught the attention of researchers that Ritualistic Consumption is a thing.
Who sponsored this fu*king research, any way?.. Jeff Bezos?
Rituals are one component in dealing with that, said Professor Kramer:
“Many people are trying to find structure right now because everything is so chaotic.
The implications of our study are that if you feel lonely, find a ritual.
It doesn’t have to be elaborate. It can help you feel less lonely by providing a sense of meaning and purpose.”
Final thoughts
Hey, the best part of waking up might be Folgers in your cup. But marketing research probably put that jingle in your head in the first place….
But this piece of demonic limbic capitalist research still has a rich observation to offer...
Rituals for one human, can and do matter. But you make it happen, the “product” is only a variable or a constant because ritual is driven by your personal sense of meaning.
Don’t get me wrong. There are beloved, iconic brands that may deservedly be essential elements in both family and personal rituals.
But remember, the purpose of most marketing is to suspend discretition, and induce hypnosis, and unthinking responses. In other words, marketing, by its very nature, tends to seek to hijack and arrogate personal meaning for profit…
LOVE AFTER LOVE
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Wang, X., Sun, Y., & Kramer, T. (2021). Ritualistic Consumption Decreases Loneliness by Increasing Meaning. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(2), 282-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243721993426
