Rituals Enhance Consumption

Abstract

Four experiments tested the novel hypothesis that ritualistic behavior potentiates and enhances ensuing consumption-an effect found for chocolates, lemonade, and even carrots. Experiment 1 showed that participants who engaged in ritualized behavior, compared with those who did not, evaluated chocolate as more flavorful, valuable, and deserving of behavioral savoring. Experiment 2 demonstrated that random gestures do not boost consumption as much as ritualistic gestures do. It further showed that a delay between a ritual and the opportunity to consume heightens enjoyment, which attests to the idea that ritual behavior stimulates goal-directed action (to consume). Experiment 3 found that performing a ritual oneself enhances consumption more than watching someone else perform the same ritual, suggesting that personal involvement is crucial for the benefits of rituals to emerge. Finally, Experiment 4 provided direct evidence of the underlying process: Rituals enhance the enjoyment of consumption because of the greater involvement in the experience that they prompt.

Full text

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 1
Running Head: RITUALS ENHANCE CONSUMPTION
Rituals Enhance Consumption
Kathleen D. Vohs
1
Yajin Wang
1
Francesca Gino
2
Michael I. Norton
2
1
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
2
Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Forthcoming, Psychological Science
Author Note: Kathleen D. Vohs and Yajin Wang, Carlson School of Management, University of
Minnesota; Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton, Harvard Business School, Harvard
University.
Correspondence: K Vohs, kvohs@umn.edu.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 2
Abstract
Four experiments tested the novel hypothesis that ritualistic behavior potentiates and enhances
the enjoyment of ensuing consumption – an effect found for chocolates, lemonade, and even
carrots. Experiment 1 showed that ritual behaviors, compared to a no-ritual condition, made
chocolate more flavorful, valuable, and deserving of behavioral savoring. Experiment 2
demonstrated that random gestures do not boost consumption like ritualistic gestures do. It
further showed that a delay between a ritual and the opportunity to consume heightens
enjoyment, which attests to the idea that ritual behavior stimulates goal-directed action (to
consume). Experiment 3 found that performing rituals oneself enhanced consumption more than
merely watching someone else perform the same ritual, suggesting that personal involvement is
crucial for the benefits of rituals to emerge. Last, Experiment 4 provided direct evidence of the
underlying process: Rituals enhance consumption enjoyment due to the greater involvement they
prompt in the experience.
Keywords: Rituals; Consumption; Enjoyment; Involvement; Decision Making

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 3
Rituals mark many life events, big and small. From sports performance to taking exams,
people use systematized sequences of behaviors to prepare for and mark events. Rituals play a
particularly prominent role in both ancient and modern consumption occasions; food historians
have catalogued the countless rituals that surround the slaughter, preparation, and consumption
of food and beverages (Tannahill, 1995). On an everyday level, Rossano (2012) depicted the
birthday ritual as taking the typical act of eating and ceremonializing it with ritualized actions –
placing the entire cake with candles ablaze in front of the special person, singing (often off-key),
and prompting a wish to be made. While the prevalence of rituals in consumption settings is
well-known, to our knowledge there have been no empirical tests of rituals’ effect. In fact, rituals
have been studied almost exclusively with qualitative designs, making it “impossible” (Rossano,
2012, p. 542) to draw causal inferences about rituals’ power to change thoughts, feelings, and
behavior.
The current experiments systematically had some people perform rituals but not others,
and then assessed consumption experiences (eating, drinking) for all. Given their long joint
history, we predicted that the experience of consuming would be enhanced — meaning enjoyed
more, including tasting more flavorful, being savored and valued — when preceded by rituals
than otherwise.
How Rituals Might Aid Consumption
Our prediction that rituals have a causal impact on the experience of consuming has hints
in anthropology. Visser (1992) described meal rituals as arousing desire. The French offer a
notable case study: known for their love of food, they — not coincidentally — heavily ritualize
eating, likely a major reason why “French kids eat everything” (Le Billion, 2012).

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 4
The question of why rituals would benefit consumption arises. Rituals are known to
increase involvement in subsequent acts (van der Hart, 1983), with involvement defined as
deriving pleasure from the act beyond its practical utility (Trevino & Webster, 1992).
Accordingly, we reasoned that heightened involvement may brighten consumption’s pleasurable
aspects. We therefore tested involvement as a driving force behind rituals’ effects on
consumption, and did so by via measurement and manipulation (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005).
We defined rituals as symbolic activity that often includes repeated and unusual behaviors
occurring in fixed, episodic sequences (Crew & Boutcher, 1986; Cohn, 1990; Rook, 1985;
Schippers & Van Lange, 2006). Operationally, we opted to use multiple and novel ritual forms to
show that a broad range of behaviors – if performed in a systematic, contextualized, stereotypy
fashion – can enhance consumption. To test the power of rituals to enhance consumption, we
used between-subjects designs and randomly assigned participants to condition.
Experiment 1: Do Rituals Enhance Consumption?
Experiment 1 tested the basic question of whether rituals enhance consumption.
Participants tasted chocolate, before which they did or did not perform a ritual. We measured
four outcomes: behavioral savoring, willingness-to-pay, flavor, and overall enjoyment. We
predicted that participants who performed a ritual would find the taste more flavorful, as well as
savor, value, and enjoy the chocolate more than those who did not perform a ritual.
Method
Participants. Fifty-two students (32 female; M
age
= 22.10, SD = 2.88) participated in
exchange for $15. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: ritual versus no
ritual.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 5
Procedure. As part of a consumer study, participants in the ritual condition were
instructed, “Without unwrapping the chocolate bar, break it in half. Unwrap half of the bar and
eat it. Then, unwrap the other half and eat it.” In the no-ritual condition, participants relaxed for
approximately the same duration and then ate the chocolate.
We measured behavioral savoring by recording how long participants spent eating the
chocolate (Quoidbach et al., 2010). Onscreen instructions told participants to press a button when
they started tasting the chocolate and another button when they completed the tasting. Savoring
was measured as duration between button presses.
Next, participants answered subjective measures of enjoyment with three items: “I really
enjoyed tasting the chocolate,” “I savored every bite,” “I really enjoyed the consumption
experience of tasting the chocolate” (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree). The average of the
items formed an enjoyment index (α=.88). As a measure of value, participants indicated their
willingness to pay for the chocolate.
Last, participants rated the chocolate’s taste: “How rich/sweet/sugary does the chocolate
seem to you?” using 7-point scales (1=not at all; 7=very much). The average of these items
formed a measure of flavor (α=.59).
Results and Discussion
Consistent with predictions, participants in the ritual condition reported enjoying the
consumption experience more than those in the no-ritual condition (M=5.95, SD=0.98 vs.
M=5.15, SD=1.20), t(50)=2.65, p=.01, d=0.73. Mirroring the ratings of overall enjoyment,
participants in the ritual condition spent more time consuming the chocolate (M=29.03 sec.,
SD=17.83 vs. M=19.93, SD=16.30), t(50)=1.74, p=.06, d=0.53. In addition, participants in the
ritual condition were more willing – literally – to put their money where their mouth was: they

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 6
reported being willing to pay more for the chocolate (M=$0.59, SD=0.32) than did participants
in the no-ritual condition (M=$0.34, SD=0.29), t(50)=2.93, p<.01, d=0.82. Finally, participants
who performed the ritual also reported that the chocolate was more flavorful (M=5.58, SD=0.65)
than did those in the no-ritual condition (M=5.22, SD=0.66), t(50)=2.16, p=.053, d=0.55.
Discussion. Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that rituals can enhance consumption.
We demonstrated the impact of a ritual, compared to a non-ritual condition, on self-reports of
enjoyment, actual behavioral savoring, and higher valuation of the experience as indicated by
participants’ willingness to pay more for the chocolate bar.
Experiment 2: Rituals versus Random Gestures, and the Power of Delay
Experiment 2 had four goals. First, we have not yet tested a design in which participants
in the no-ritual condition performed any movements, which raises alternate explanations for
Experiment 1’s results. Therefore, Experiment 2 instructed non-ritual condition participants to
perform movements. Based on anthropological literature linking rituals to heightened pleasure
when consuming (Le Billion, 2012; Visser, 1992), we predicted that ritualized behaviors would
improve consumption beyond the effect of random gestures.
Second, we tested whether anticipated enjoyment would be higher in the presence of
rituals. Anticipated enjoyment is a critical component of utility and provides a separate source of
pleasure from actual consumption (Loewenstein, 1987). We predicted that rituals, compared to
random gestures, would have a positive effect on both anticipated and actual consumption.
Third, our theory is that rituals heighten involvement in the consumption act. If true, then
a break between the ritual and consumption ought to stimulate the drive to consume, which we
predicted would further heighten rituals’ effects on enjoyment. We derived this prediction from
research showing that a delay between goal cues and the opportunity to enact goal-directed

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 7
behavior potentiates the ensuing behavior (Förster, Liberman, & Friedman, 2007). We therefore
expected that participants who performed a ritual and then must wait before consuming would
show the highest enjoyment.
Last, we altered what participants consumed from the sublime (chocolate) to the
mundane: carrots. We used healthy food as a strong test of our hypothesis that rituals can
enhance enjoyment of a neutral (viz. not strongly hedonic) stimulus.
1
Method
Participants and design. One hundred-and-five students (59 female, M
age
=22.14,
SD=2.74) from the United States participated in exchange for extra course credit. They were
randomly assigned to a 2 (ritual/random) by 2 (delay/no delay) design.
Procedure. As a session on several ostensibly unrelated studies, participants learned that
the first involved vegetables. Three plastic bags of carrots were arranged on the table.
Participants in the ritual condition performed an identical set of gestures and movements
before they tasted each of three carrots, one from each bag. Participants in the random condition,
in contrast, performed different gestures before consuming each carrot.
To implement the delay versus no delay conditions, all participants twice performed their
assigned gestures and ate two carrots. The procedure diverged for no-delay and delay condition
participants after the third gesture. Participants in the no-delay condition performed the gesture
and reported their anticipated enjoyment of the third carrot. Two items – “how much do you
anticipate enjoying the next carrot”; “how much do you want to have another carrot” (1=not at
all; 7=very much) – were averaged to form an index of anticipated enjoyment (α=.89). Next, they
tasted a carrot from the third bag and reported their enjoyment: “I really enjoyed the carrot”; “I
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1
A taste-rating pretest (n=36) confirmed that participants perceive carrots as neutrally-hedonic. For more
information, please contact the authors.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 8
savored every bite” (1=not at all; 7=very much) and “How did the carrot taste?” (1=worst;
7=best carrot ever had). These items were averaged to form an enjoyment index (α=.90).
Delay condition participants performed the third set of gestures, and then were told that
they would not eat the third carrot immediately but instead would complete an unrelated study.
They then rated their anticipated enjoyment, answered questionnaires, and finally ate the third
carrot and rated their enjoyment.
Results and Discussion
Pretest. Fifty-three students (24 female) participated in ritual or random conditions
following no-delay condition procedures (although drinking water instead of lemonade). After
the third gesture and sip, participants answered: “How much did your hand movements feel like
a ritual?” and “How much did you feel like you were doing random actions?” (1=not at all;
7=very much). Confirming the manipulation’s effectiveness, participants in the ritual condition
reported that their movements felt more like a ritual (M=3.96, SD=1.96) and less like random
action (M=4.69, SD=1.99) than participants in the random condition (M=2.41, SD=2.01; M=6.30,
SD=1.24), Fs(1, 52)>8.10, ps<.01.
Main experiment: Anticipated enjoyment. We predicted that participants in the ritual
condition would both anticipate enjoying and actually enjoy the carrots more than participants in
the random conditions. Moreover, we predicted that participants in the ritual delay condition
would both anticipate enjoying and actually enjoy the carrots more than participants in the other
three conditions.
Consistent with expectations, an ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of ritual
condition on anticipated enjoyment, F(1,101)=29.57, p<.001, η
2
=.22, indicating that participants
in the ritual condition reported more anticipated enjoyment (M=4.71, SD=1.45) than participants

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 9
in the random condition (M=3.33, SD=1.13). There was also a significant main effect of delay,
F(1,101)=4.32, p<.05, η
2
=.04, suggesting that participants in the delay condition reported greater
anticipated enjoyment (M=4.32, SD=1.55) than participants in the no-delay condition (M=3.77,
SD=1.36). The interaction of ritual and delay did not reach significance, F(1,101)=1.46, p=.23.
We used a planned comparison strategy to test the hypothesized comparisons (Keppel &
Wickens, 2004; Kirk, 1995). Three pairwise comparisons showed that, consistent with
predictions, participants in the ritual delay condition (M=5.10, SD=1.32) reported higher
anticipated enjoyment than did the other three conditions: ritual no-delay (M=4.28, SD=1.49),
t(101)=2.40, p<.05, d=.48, random delay (M=3.44, SD=1.28), t(101)=4.74, p<.001, d=.94, and
random no-delay (M=3.22, SD=1.00), t(101)=5.90, p<.001, d=1.18 (Figure 1).
Analyses within the delay and no-delay conditions also revealed the positive effects of
ritualized compared to random gestures on anticipated enjoyment. Participants in the ritual
condition reported great anticipated enjoyment both when there was a delay, t(101)=4.74, p<.001,
d=.94, and when there was no delay, t(101)=2.94, p<.01, d=.59. These results suggest that rituals
heighten anticipation regardless of delay condition — and that a delay enhances their effects
even more.
Main experiment: Experienced enjoyment. A 2 (ritual vs. random) by 2 (delay vs. no-
delay) ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for ritual condition, F(1,101)=18.87, p<.001,
η
2
=.16, indicating that participants in the ritual condition reported higher enjoyment (M=4.80,
SD=1.49) than participants in the random condition (M=3.69, SD=1.08). Similar to anticipated
enjoyment, a significant main effect of delay was also found, F(1,101)=6.17, p<.05, η
2
=.06,
suggesting that participants in the delay condition reported higher experienced enjoyment

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 10
(M=4.58, SD=1.63) than participants in the no-delay condition (M=3.93, SD=1.08). The
interaction between delay and ritual was not significant, F<1.
Planned comparisons tested our predictions. Participants in the ritual delay condition
(M=5.20, SD=1.69) reported significant higher experienced enjoyment than participants in the
ritual no-delay condition (M=4.35, SD=1.15), t(101)=2.48, p<.05, d=.49, random delay condition
(M=3.88, SD=1.29), t(101)=3.76, p<.001, d=.75, and random no-delay condition (M=3.49,
SD=.82), t(101)=4.96, p<.001, d=.99 (Figure 2).
Participants in the ritual condition reported higher experienced enjoyment both with and
without a delay: delay: t(101)=3.76, p<.001; no-delay: t(101)=2.39, p<.05, d=.48. In parallel to
the results on anticipated enjoyment, these results confirm that rituals benefit enjoyment whether
there is or is not a delay between the ritual and the opportunity to consume — and that a delay
amplifies enjoyment even more.
Discussion. Experiment 2 demonstrated that rituals heighten both anticipated and
experienced enjoyment. The no-delay conditions demonstrate that participants who first
performed systematic, repetitive movements enjoyed consuming more than participants who
performed non-systematic, random movements. Moreover, separating the ritual performance
from immediate consumption heightened appreciation ever further: participants who performed a
ritual but were required to wait before consuming reported greater anticipated and experienced
enjoyment relative to other conditions. Last, we note that these results were obtained with carrots,
which are not universally held in high regard in terms of taste.
Experiment 3: Does Personal Involvement Matter?
The primary goal of Experiment 3 was to manipulate involvement to offer support for our
contention that personal involvement is a key driver of the enhancing effects of rituals. We tested

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 11
whether merely seeing a ritual performed is enough to enhance consumption, or whether the
effects of rituals will emerge more when performing the ritual oneself. On the one hand,
observing behavior can trigger processes similar to performing behavior oneself (Ackerman et al.,
2009), suggesting that there is no difference between observing and enacting rituals on
consumption. On the other hand, our proposed mediator, intrinsic involvement, seems more
likely when one performs behavior than merely watches it (Walsh & Rosenbaum, 2009).
Therefore, we predicted that merely observing rituals would not be as influential on consumption
outcomes (here, flavorful) as performing rituals.
Experiment 2 also made several methodological changes. We switched from using
chocolate to lemonade and used a different ritual from Experiment 1. Testing our hypotheses
with different consumption experiences and ritualistic behavior builds confidence that our results
are not due to specific circumstances. We also tested whether rituals impact emotions in order to
rule out mood as an explanation.
Method
Participants and design. Forty students (23 female, M
age
=20.50, SD=2.15) participated
in exchange for extra course credit. Students were randomly assigned to one of the two
conditions: self-ritual versus other-ritual.
Procedure. In a study on product tasting, self-ritual condition participants were given
steps to make a glass of lemonade. They poured half of a packet of lemonade powder and enough
water for half of the glass, then stirred the mixture and waited 30 seconds. Next, they poured the
remainder of the powder and enough water to top up the glass, stirred, and waited 30 seconds. In
the other-ritual condition, participants observed the experimenter perform these same steps. All
participants then tasted the lemonade.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 12
As in Experiment 1, participants rated the flavorful of the lemonade using three items
(sweet/sugary/balanced, α=.73). Last, participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect
Schedule (PANAS, Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988; 1=very slightly; 5=extremely) to assess
positive (α=.87) and negative affect (α=.77).
Results and Discussion
Consistent with predictions, participants who performed the ritual reported that the
lemonade tasted more flavorful (M=4.55, SD=1.00) than did participants who watched the
experimenter perform the ritual (M=3.75, SD=1.44) t(38)=2.04, p<.05, d=.65. Importantly, we
found no difference in positive or negative affect as a function of condition, ts<1.40, ns.
Discussion. Rituals seem to increase the flavor of the consumption experience more
when performed by the consumer rather than someone else. Hence, merely observing a ritual was
less effective in enhancing consumption than performing those rituals oneself – which suggests
that the best way to enjoy a glass of wine may be to perform the ceremonial bottle opening
oneself rather than foist it off to a fellow party-goer. The beneficial effects of rituals also do not
appear to be linked to changes in positive or negative mood.
Experiment 4: Explaining the Beneficial Effects of Rituals for Consumption
While Experiment 3 demonstrated a moderating role for personal involvement, in
Experiment 4 we assessed involvement directly in order to demonstrate its mediating role in
explaining the beneficial effects of rituals on consumption. We operationalized involvement as
intrinsic interest using a subscale of a well-validated questionnaire assessing the components of
flow experiences (Trevino & Webster, 1992). We predicted that compared to a non-ritual
condition, rituals would lead to higher levels of intrinsic involvement, which would play a
mediating role in enhancing consumption. Further, we predicted that the process would be

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 13
specific to keener intrinsic interest and not to other possible mediators, and therefore tested
specificity by including other dimensions of flow.
Method
Participants and design. Eighty-seven adults (33 female; 65 students; M
age
= 22.51, SD
= 2.61) participated in exchange for $15. They were recruited through a university subject pool.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: ritual versus no ritual.
Procedure. The procedure was similar to Experiment 1. In addition to enjoyment (α=.85)
and willingness-to-pay were three-item indices measuring control (α=.72), attention focus
(α=.77), curiosity (α=.95), and intrinsic interest (α=.69; Trevino & Webster, 1992). Items on the
latter were: “Eating the chocolate bored / was fun / was intrinsically interesting” (1=not at all;
7=very much).
Results and Discussion
Consumption experience. Participants in the ritual condition were willing to pay more
for the chocolate (M=$0.45, SD=0.33) than participants in the no-ritual condition (M=$0.30,
SD=0.25), t(85)=2.42, p<.02, d=.52. Rituals also enhanced chocolate’s pleasure. Compared to
participants in the no-ritual condition, those in the ritual condition reported greater enjoyment of
the consumption experience (M=6.12, SD=0.85 v s. M=5.50, SD=1.16; t(85)=2.81, p<.01,
d=.62).
Intrinsic interest. As predicted, performing rituals influenced intrinsic interest in the
ensuing chocolate tasting, t(85)=2.53, p<.02, d=.54. Participants in the ritual condition reported
greater intrinsic interest than those in the no-ritual condition (M=4.99, SD=1.11 vs. M=4.37,
SD=1.18).

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 14
Other subscales of flow. The positive effect of rituals was specific to increasing intrinsic
interest. Participants in the ritual condition reported similar levels of control, attention focus, and
curiosity as those in the no-ritual condition (ps>.20).
Mediation. We tested whether intrinsic interest mediated the relationship between rituals
and enjoyment of the consumption experience. When controlling for condition, intrinsic interest
predicted enjoyment (β=.43, p<.001). After controlling for intrinsic interest, the effect of
condition on enjoyment decreased from β=.29, p=.006 to β=.18, p=.073, (95% bias-corrected CI
= [0.06, 0.54]), thereby indicating full mediation.
A similar analysis using WTP as the dependent measure also supported intrinsic interest
as the key process. When controlling for condition, intrinsic interest predicted WTP (β=.27,
p<.02). After controlling for intrinsic interest, the conditional effect on WTP decreased from
β=.25, p=.018 to β=.18, p=.09 (95% bias-corrected CI = [0.01, 0.10]), again indicating full
mediation.
Discussion. Experiment 4 replicated our previous findings on the beneficial effects of
rituals on the pleasure of consuming. Importantly, mediation analyses demonstrated that intrinsic
interest drove the relationship between performing rituals and how much people enjoyed
consuming and the value they placed on the product they just consumed.
General Discussion
Rituals often make life better. Obsessives find activities less stressful when they are
permitted to perform their chosen rituals (e.g., Rachman & Hodgson, 1980) and space feels safer
and food purer in the presence of rituals (Dulaney & Fiske, 1994). We explored the impact of
rituals in making a ubiquitous aspect of everyday life more enjoyable – consumption. Four
experiments supported our hypothesis that rituals enhance consumption.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 15
Our results were robust to methodological and sample differences. We studied college
students and community adults, as well as diverse ritualized behaviors — from stirring and
pouring liquid to breaking and unwrapping food to rapping knuckles on a table. When these
behaviors followed a systematic, ritualistic pattern, then enjoyment increased; when they did not
or when the behaviors performed were more random and therefore less ritualistic, enjoyment was
less. We found that rituals enhanced consumption of sweet (chocolate), tart (lemonade), and
healthy (carrots) items. We assessed subjective ratings (flavor, enjoyment), value (willingness to
pay), and actual behavior (duration spent savoring). Across metrics, rituals improved the
consumption experience.
We not only documented whether rituals enhance consumption – they do – but also the
process by which that enhancement occurs. Rituals seem to improve the consumption experience
because they lead to greater involvement and interest. Following recommendation of Spencer,
Zanna, and Fong (2005), we used an approach that supports a role for involvement via both
moderation and mediation. Experiment 3 showed that merely observing a ritual being performed
does not enhance consumption as much as personal involvement in performing that ritual, while
Experiment 4 demonstrated that when people perform a ritual, their intrinsic interest increases;
this increased involvement in turn leads to more enjoyable consumption. In sum, performing
rituals heightens the involvement that people feel while consuming, and feeling deeply involved
potentiates the experience.
Four avenues for future direction seem worthy of discussion. First, future studies could
examine what kinds of consumption experiences are most likely to improve with rituals.
Experiments 1 and 3 showed that rituals augment flavor, which is among the most important
determinants of which foods people choose to eat (Glanz, Kristal, Tilley, & Hirst, 1998). We do

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 16
not claim that rituals will aid all forms of consumption, however, because boosting the flavor of
some tastes may be offputting. Research on the effect of rituals to alter the taste of truly
unenjoyable foods would be welcome.
Second, there might be cognitive effects or lay beliefs about rituals that pertain to the
ritual-consumption effect documented here. It could be that rituals act akin to a mindfulness
induction, which might be part of the causal process. Moreover, that participants in Experiment
2’s pretest could intuit that their repeated performances constituted a ritual suggests that some
ritual effects could come about because of lay beliefs.
Third, our results were marked by fairly big effect sizes. This likely came about for
several reasons. One is that ritualized behavior likely encompasses several mechanisms. In
addition to involvement, rituals might serve a preparatory, symbolic, or palliative function. Other
work has shown that rituals restore control after loss (Norton & Gino, in press). Two is that our
participants performed actual behavior, which itself could have triggered several mechanisms
(see Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007). Work into which settings and outcomes tap into which
mechanisms will reveal more about the compellingness of ritualized behavior.
Fourth, the social dimension of rituals deserves further attention. Many common
consumption rituals – such as the birthday cake example mentioned earlier – are inherently social
in nature. Although our results demonstrate that rituals can enhance consumption even in the
absence of social factors, enacting rituals in a rich social context may have additional benefits –
benefits that may extend beyond enhancing consumption. For instance, families that consistently
enact ritual behaviors have children with better self-control and academic performance than
families that do not make use of rituals (Brody & Flor, 1997; Fiese, 2002; Seaton & Taylor,

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 17
2003). This suggests that perhaps enacting rituals around food as a family would not only
heighten the consumption experience but lead to more broadly positive outcomes.
Conclusion
Rituals have a surprising degree of influence over how people experience what comes
next. We examined the everyday experiences of eating and drinking in order to systematically
test the effects of rituals on consumption, and consistently observed that consumption was more
pleasurable than it would be otherwise. Because our results suggest that rituals can enhance the
pleasure derived from even neutral stimuli (here, carrots), our results suggest that rituals could be
put to use to make a wide variety of desirable behaviors – from eating healthily to exercising to
practicing safe sex – more pleasurable. Rituals, then, might serve as a covert means to get people
to do a little more of what makes life worth living.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 18
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Figures
Figure 1. Anticipated enjoyment, Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors.

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Rituals Enhance Consumption 22
Figure 2. Experienced enjoyment, Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors