Why Rituals Work

Harvard experiments where made-up rituals reduced anxiety and grief, even for people who didn't believe in rituals.

Why rituals work · 396 Hz, 6 Hz theta

SCIENCE A ritual you invent on the spot

Can a ritual work if you know it was made up five minutes ago? A team of researchers from Harvard and several other universities — Alison Wood Brooks, Juliana Schroeder, Jane Risen, Francesca Gino, Adam Galinsky, Michael Norton and Maurice Schweitzer — tested exactly that. Before a stressful task (singing in front of a stranger, a hard maths test), some people performed a short, arbitrary sequence of actions: drawing how they felt, sprinkling salt on it, counting out loud, crumpling the paper.

Those who did the ritual felt less anxious, had lower heart rates and performed better. And here's the twist: the same actions only helped when they were called a ritual. Described as "random behaviours", the identical steps did much less.

SCIENCE Rituals and grief

In earlier experiments, Michael Norton and Francesca Gino asked people to recall a loss — a death, a break-up, even losing a lottery set up in the lab. People who performed a small ritual about the loss reported less grief and a stronger sense of control, even people who said they didn't believe rituals work.

WHAT THE WITCHES KNEW

Circles, candles, words said out loud, objects burned or buried: a witch's rituals look strange from outside. These studies suggest one ordinary reason they helped: a ritual gives a frightened or grieving mind a structure and a sense of control. No magic needed for it to work — and that makes it more useful, not less.

On the Dance Floor

Invent a ritual for the evening: three actions, done in the same order, with a name. For example, touch the floor, open your arms, breathe out loud — "opening the circle". Use it at the start of the dance and again at the end.

DONE WHEN...

You can explain why calling something a ritual changed the results, and you've written your own three-step ritual.

References & Resources

Brooks, A. W., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Gino, F., Galinsky, A. D., Norton, M. I. & Schweitzer, M. E. (2016). Don't stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 71–85.

Norton, M. I. & Gino, F. (2014). Rituals alleviate grieving for loved ones, lovers, and lotteries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(1), 266–272.