The ThinkND Podcast
The ThinkND Podcast
Virtues & Vocations, Part 24: Habit, Ritual, & Well-being
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Episode Topic: Habit, Ritual, & Well-being
Unlock your day's hidden potential. Harvard’s Michael Norton explains how freelancing simple, even ridiculous rituals—from clinking silverware to morning coffee—transforms mundane habits into vital anchors for emotional resilience. Discover how these social signatures move you beyond mere automation to truly animating your professional and personal life for flourishing.
Featured Speakers:
- Michael Norton, Harvard Business School
Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/d2e1b0.
This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Virtues & Vocations.
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Welcome
1Hi, everyone. Happy February. It's another snowy day here in South Bend. Welcome to the webinar, Virtues and Vocations: Conversations on Character and the Common Good. In this series, we share conversations about how education and work can promote human flourishing This series is part of Virtues and Vocations, a national forum that is housed at the Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame and supported by the Kern Family Foundation. Virtues and Vocations seeks to foster a community of practice amongst scholars and practitioners across disciplines who are keen to understand how best to cultivate character and moral purpose in higher education and the professions. This webinar is one of the ways we facilitate these conversations. I am Suzanne Shanahan, and I direct the Institute for Social Concerns, and I'm host for this series. Today, we are thrilled to welcome scholar and author Michael Norton. Michael is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He holds a BA in psychology and English from Williams College and a PhD in psychology from Princeton University. Prior to jo- joining Harvard, uh, Michael was a fellow at the MIT Media Lab and MIT's Sloan School of Management. He is author of the book The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions. He is also co-author with Elizabeth Dunn of the book Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. His research has been, and I think this is one of the best all-time things, an answer to Final Jeopardy. He's also been parodied on The Onion. In two thousand and twelve, he was selected for Wired magazine's Smart List as one of the fifty people who will change the world. His TEDx talk, "How to Buy Happiness," has v- been viewed more than four point five million times. Today, we're gonna discuss his latest book, Ritual Effect. I could not think of a more delightful way to spend a snowy day, both here in the Midwest and across the Northeast, where Michael finds himself now. So welcome, Michael.
Speaker 2Thank you so much, Suzanne.
1It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2Great
1to
Speaker 2be here. Um,
From Happiness to Rituals
1I wanna jump in and talk a little bit about your background and how you came to the kind of work you currently do.
Speaker 2I actually-- So I'm a social psychologist by training. Um, now I'm at a business school, which we can discuss that transition. But- um, the reason I started studying small things that you can do on a daily basis to kind of change your mood or change your happiness is a friend of mine, uh, Liz Dunn, who we co-wrote the other book you mentioned, Happy Money, she said that I was, um, depressing And so she said that we were gonna study happiness together. She just announced it to me, and I said, um, "I'm not sure if you can study happiness." Like, uh, you know, it seems like a philosophy thing more than a kind of science thing. But she convinced me to do it, and she said, "Let's see, uh, if we can change how people spend their money and see if that changes how happy they are." So she had this idea that asking people to give money instead of spending on themselves would make them happier. And the idea was it wasn't, like, for billionaires, you know, how to manage their assets or something. It was for everyday folks, you know, five dollars and ten dollars. What could you do differently today to change your happiness? And from that kind of went all over the place on what are the small things we can do every day to change our happiness. And eventually, that led into rituals because if, as we'll probably discuss, if you look at people's days and weeks and months and years, they're so patterned by all the various rituals that they engage in. From the moment you wake up in the morning and you're doing your shower routine and getting your coffee to the moment you go to bed when you're, you know, turning off your phone and things like that. So it really started to be an obvious thing to study and see why are people, are people doing these things all the time, and then why are they doing them all the time? And then a little bit, can we help people think differently about them and maybe even change some of the things that they're doing?
1So I, I, I found the book just really fascinating and hugely fun. Um, but one of the things you talk about is the difference between habit and ritual. And so can you describe that? Because I think of, yeah, I get up and I have lots of habits. I'm not sure they're rituals.
Speaker 2Can I ask you a, um, silly question?
1Yeah.
Speaker 2Which is, uh, in the morning when you're getting ready, do you shower first and then brush your teeth or do you brush your teeth and then shower? And if you're watching the webinar, answer the question yourself in your head as well.
1So I brush my teeth first
Speaker 2And then shower?
1Yeah. But usually I read first.
Speaker 2Read, brush teeth, shower.
1Yeah. So I, I read, brush teeth, shower.
Speaker 2Okay. So about half of people brush and then shower, and half of people shower and then brush, which is kind of a weird thing. Humans haven't really decided on what's the right way. But the key question for your question about habits and rituals is, if I asked you tomorrow morning to change the order of how you do things, would it bother you or would-- could you not care less, like it doesn't matter to you at all?
1I don't think it matters to me at all
Speaker 2So again, about half of people say, almost say, "Why are you even asking me that? Why would I care?" Yeah. "I brush my teeth, shower, whatever. I just gotta get ready." And about half of people say, uh, "I don't wanna change the order, and I, I don't know why, but I feel weird. And if I change the order, I'd feel weird all day." Like, "I wouldn't feel..." They use phrases like, "I wouldn't feel ready to start my day," or, "I'd feel strange, you know, when I got to work." And so that distinction, I think, is a little bit the distinction between habit and rituals, which is for you, because you don't care about the order, they're more like habits, the kind of- Yeah things you need to get done, check 'em off your list every day. Yep. It doesn't really matter when you... Like, when you pay your bills doesn't matter to you either. But for some people, when it bothers you to change them up, and when you feel good when you do it the right way, it's moving toward being more of a ritual. It's not ritual like people in robes with candles chanting. That's kinda fur- further down, you know, the continuum. But it's on that continuum of suddenly it's not just the behaviors themselves, but how you do them that starts to matter. And as soon as how you do them starts to matter, for us, we kinda consider that moving toward not just a dry, boring habit, but a little bit more of an emotional ritual.
1So it... Right. So it's we, if we take this, um, can something... Yeah, I'm trying to think. I'm, I'm not really a, a person who gets bothered by habits. But imagine, um, that can, can you have a habit that's important to you that's not a ritual, right? Or is there something about the way you think about a ritual or experience a ritual that differentiates it from a habit besides not being bothered by it?
Speaker 2I think that, um... So, um, first thing is there are many, um, rituals that are not related to habits. So if you think about, like, funerals and weddings- Yeah and things like that. We're usually not trying to kinda check those off our lists every morning- Yes. sort of thing. So we know that, that in some of the big ones, they feel very different. But then in some domains, like the ones we're talking about, they do feel very, very tightly related. And in fact, it's very frustrating for us because it's not like if you clap twice, it's a habit, and if you clap three or more times, it becomes a ritual. Mm-hmm. And we know that because the exact same behaviors for some people can be a habit and for other people can be a ritual, like brushing your teeth. I mean, we use those 'cause they're so mundane. Yeah. But brushing your teeth and showering, it's not like I can say people who brush their teeth and shower are doing a ritual. I have to ask people about the ritual to see if they care or not- Right in order to start to figure out if it's a ritual. And it's honestly extremely frustrating as a researcher because we can't, there's not like a secret formula, you know, if it lasts more than a minute, it's a ritual or-
1Right,
Speaker 2right you know, something else like that. Yeah. That's not how they work. It's actually very privately defined for people. Is this thing a ritual for me, or do I not care that much and it's just sort of a drier habit?
1Yeah, I th- I think of this distinction between habit and ritual, um, vis-a-vis my children. So my children are all sort of college age and out of the house. And when they were growing up, we used to have this thing called Dip Friday. So we would just make dip on Friday.
Speaker 2I love it.
1And that would be d- and that would be dinner. And for me, that was, that was a lazy habit because it was Friday and I didn't wanna have to cook.
Speaker 2Yeah.
1Um, but they really think of it as a very important ritual. So now they come home for breaks and things, and it's a Friday, and they're like, "Why isn't it Dip Friday?"
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
1I'm like, "Well, I'm not as lazy now because you're not here, so I can actually cook you a meal," but they want Dip Friday. So is it possible, uh, that two people can be engaged in the same behavior and some it's a ritual and some it's just a habit?
Speaker 2It happens all the time, which I think is one of the things that we, um, o- others had noticed it as well, but one of the things that we really thought was important to know. So if, I mean, for ex- I was raised Irish Catholic, so we went to church, and some people in church, when they go, it's, um, an expression of their faith, and it's one of the most important things in their life. You know, it's a huge part of their identity. They can't imagine life without it. Other people are there because their parents made them go.
1Right.
Speaker 2And I can't tell, if I were look, you know, up in the ceiling looking down, everybody's doing the same thing. They're, you know, we're standing at the same time. Right. We're saying the same words. For some people, again, it's this incredibly important, meaningful thing in their life, and for other people, they're literally going through the motions- Right just to get out of their, you know, so they can go do- Yep whatever else they wanted to do. So it's weirdly common actually, that some people, it looks like everyone's doing a ritual, but in fact, only some people are truly engaged in the ritual in some kind of meaningful way.
1Yeah. So I think of this line where you talk about the difference, where I think it was habit automates and ritual animates, and that's, that's the kind of distinction there.
Creating Everyday Rituals
1Um, eh, the other thing I found interesting was this notion of how you can animate or ritualize a habit and the benefits of doing that. Can you talk a little bit about what that might look like? You give these fabulous examples in the book, but maybe you can talk a little, um, just, just what that would look like.
Speaker 2Yeah. There's a funny, um aspect of ritual. So I think when we say the word ritual, we're thinking more of the people in robes with candles kind of rituals. Yeah. And so they feel two things. They feel very far from us.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2And they also feel like we received them. In other words, there, there's a way to do them, and I'm supposed to do it that way. And those ones, and it- those play incredibly important roles in our lives. I, I never mean to discount how important received rituals are. But those kind of... They're a little bit limiting in the sense that we can't change them around very much. You know, it's literally written down how to do it, and so that's how we do it. But what we saw was people were constantly under the surface kind of freelancing their own little rituals. Mm-hmm. And we noticed it, uh, in a bunch of domains, but one of the, um Like if you think of, uh, romantic relationships for example, we know what a wedding is, we know what an anniversary is, or what Valentine- You know, we have these things that we're supposed to do this certain thing. But when we ask couples like, "Is there anything you do that's..." We don't use the word ritual, 'cause th- again, they think of people in robes. Yeah. So we say things like, "Is there anything that the two of you do that's important to you, that you do regularly, that other couples don't seem to do, that you feel kind of is important for who you are as a couple?" And most couples, like depends on the survey, but you know, 65, 75% say yes. And then the things they tell us are always adorable. I don't think there's a better word honestly- than adorable. Because one, um, this couple always sticks for me, I don't know why, but they... Th- this person just wrote, "Every time before we eat, we clink our silverware together." And you g- usually it's like, aw. You can feel, right- Yeah, yep how cute that is, and how, and, and how, um, important it is to them. And you know, I bet they've been doing it for years and years before every meal. And at the same time, it's completely random and ridiculous. You know? I mean, there's no ancient book that says, "Clink you know, your silverware together." And so one of the fascinating things for me about rituals is we can use whatever's around us in rituals, and people are doing it all the time. So it's not like there's some sacred objects that you have to use. People grab the most boring things in the world, like silverware, and imbue them with a lot of meaning, and then that can become a ritual for them. So you don't need like, um, special tools or special sayings or special anything. You just need this willingness to kind of build in, uh, meaning to rituals and these everyday objects. And one of the best things about those, uh, couples rituals is if you ask people, if you break up with someone and you say like, um, "How upset would you be if they started dating someone else?" Or, "How upset if they got married?" Or, "How upset if they had kids?" You're, usually if your ex does that, you're, you know, you feel a little bad about it. But if we say, "How upset would you be if they reused your ritual?" People are furious.
1Interesting.
Speaker 2I mean, it's way more anger on how dare... You know, we always used to buy this certain kind of flower, and then you see your ex giving that same kind of flower to their next... Or imagine you look over at a restaurant- Right. Yep and they're clinking forks with their new- Yep. People are so viscerally angry about it. And again, you can see all it is is clinking silverware, all it is is tulips, you know, whatever it might be. Right. But they become so important and so emotional for us that we feel great when they're happening, and then we can get really upset when they get disrupted.
1So as you talk about this, um, this is clearly something that really animates you. Uh, was, was there a moment like the work on, um, money and happiness where you're like, "Ooh, ritual is something that's super compelling to me"? Like- It's fun- how, how did you land there?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's funny because, um, I'd been doing a little work on rituals for a couple of years, but not really, like, really into it yet. I was just kinda poking around And I was sort of studying them like, um, like a scientist, like a Harvard professor. Kind of, kind of like at a distance. People are doing these kinds of things. It's not really for me necessarily, but it's fascinating. And then something happened which, um, was expected, but still a big shock, which was my wife and I had our daughter. And if you've ever had a child, what happens is you're in the hospital for a little bit, and then they're like, um, "Here's a baby. Bye." And you, you have to go home and figure out everything you know about this. E-even if you have help, it's still a big deal.
1Right.
Speaker 2And so the big thing for new parents, I mean, it's like a cliché, but it's sleep. Like, is the baby sleeping? Are you sleeping? How's the sleep? You know, over and over again, it's all we talk about. And, um, what-- And we were the exactly the same way. Like, is, is she sleeping? How is she gonna sleep? And what we started to do was, um, kind of like a little f- a little thing that kept building. So it would be like, um, she seems to like being rocked like, like this, and then she seems to like this song, and then this book, like Very Hungry Caterpillar or whatever it was, and then a quick bath, and then this, and then Mom does this, and then Dad does this, and then we put her in bed. And it kept getting more and more elaborate as she, you know, it was like, "Now we need this stuffed animal instead of that stuffed animal." And if we couldn't find the stuffed animal, like panic, you know what I mean? Like, "Where's the stuffed-- We need this." It was gray bunny. "We need the gray bunny right now in order to do this." Right. And it was months and months and months, honestly. And then I suddenly realized, like, oh my God, we've completely created from scratch a ritual- Mm-hmm that is, you know, very specific steps, very specific objects. We care a ton about it. We have this strong belief that it's working, you know, to help her sleep. And every parent, if you ask them, one of the things I ask my students to do is call up their parents and ask their parents do they remember their bedtime ritual when they were going to bed. And number one, parents always remember and can say it exactly, and number two, their parents start crying because it brings you right back to the feeling of holding your baby, which is r- You-- Of course, you remember them as a baby, but the ritual actually literally can bring you back in this very emotional way. And so we, um, we're doing it, and I, I, all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, I, I, I, I thought this was something I was studying, but people turn to them for all sorts of things in life, including stressful events, and I'm just exactly like everybody else. And that really was the thing where I said, H-How ubiquitous are these in how many domains of life? And then really started to dive into it.
1That's great. I kind of, uh, right, I, I find that a really interesting example because it's, i- in some sense, right, it emerged out of your anxiety, right? Not, not even necessarily your child's need.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
1So, and it's funny 'cause you talk about this and I'm, and I had twins who had very different evening- Ah rituals. And I remember sort of one of my daughters, Ivy, was about three, and, you know, sort of there was a ritual that sort of a little bit replicated her sister's, but had some variation.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
1Um, and I remember her looking at me and she'd be like Literally said, "All this crap, I, I really don't need it." It's kind of- It's-- Yeah, she was just annoyed by the entire thing.
Speaker 2Uh-huh.
1And was like, "I-- Just get out of my room." And, you know, sort of right, like, but again, like, what, what was something I needed and what was something she needed, and what was the relationship between the two were totally decoupled in a, in a really, really interesting way.
Speaker 2Completely, and you know, it's, it's for us too, it's in- totally unclear if the thing that we came up with helped her at all. You know, we never varied the order systematically or so- You know what I mean? Let's try this stuffed animal for a week and then, you know, we didn't do anything like that, of course, 'cause it's too risky to change the order. Right.
1Exactly.
Speaker 2But it's, it-- who knows if it helped her or not, but as you said, it definitely helped us-
1Right
Speaker 2I think feel like we had some control over the fact that we had this little human in our house that we were supposed to, you know, somehow raise or whatever the right word is for that. Yeah. Yeah. And people very often will turn to them in these moments in life that are hard to deal with, whether it's loss or- Yeah surprise or stress or things like that. We spontaneously actually just start doing rituals. It's not that we say, "Let's sit down and come up with a ritual." We just start doing them and developing them across- Mm-hmm you know, cultures, across time. It seems to be something that the humans really, really are into for whatever reason.
1So, um, you said people like, you know, and you described this instance with you and your partner and your daughter where it sort of emerged.
When Rituals Help or Hurt
1Um, one of the things I was wondering, and there are pieces in the book that allude to this, should we be ritualizing the, the kind of prosaic, quotidian dimensions of our life or the, like, the utter banality of it? And is-- would that be good for us? Like I, as I was reading it, I was like, "Oh, I could ritualize this or ritualize that, and maybe that would feel better or make me happier or more content in some way."
Speaker 2Yeah. I think, um, two thoughts. I think one is that it isn't always the case that more rituals are better.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2Which I think is, and we can talk about, you know, why that is- Yeah and why that's actually such an important, um, thing to think about with rituals, is that it can happen that we have so many rituals that the rituals start to get in the way of what we are trying to accomplish instead of help us with what we are trying to accomplish. Most people have, you know, heard of obsessive compulsive disorder.
1Right.
Speaker 2And I'm, I'm not a clinical psychologist, so I'm, I'm sure I'm wrong in how I describe it, but one of the aspects is this ritualization of behavior that you cannot turn off-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2in order to do something else in life. So if I Uh, I often double-check to see if I locked the door, you know, before I go to work. Just one time, you know, I just like wiggle it one more time, and then I feel good. And I'm doing that in order to go and go to work and have my day. What can happen with rituals is that we start to do the thing for its own sake. In other words, I'm, I'm checking the door in order to check the door- Mm and I can't get out of the loop, and then I never stop and go to work. And so they're-- they do have this, um, real potential, as you're saying, to bring these mundane things a little bit more mean, like clinking silverware and all this kind of stuff. But there is also a, I think, unfortunate... It's not one of those things like the seven secret rituals that will make you happy, you know, every minute of your life. I wish it were, but it's not. It's that they're-- they are very emotional and meaningful, and that can go in all sorts of different directions for us, some of them positive. But then I think there are real risks that we always try to emphasize whenever we talk about this work
1So I find that super interesting that they, right, they can be a good thing, but they can also pivot negatively and, right, so you're not trying to ritualize all dimensions of your existence, for example. Um, it's... Are there times, right, where you can imagine suggesting, like it would be good to have rituals? In your research you're like, "It's good to have them here and there," or you said there aren't the seven magical rituals. Mm. I think that needs to be the next book.
Speaker 2It would just be an empty book, but yeah. Yeah. But it's not all.
1Yeah. I,
Speaker 2I do, I do think there's certain places we've seen in life where, um, it's never the case that obviously everybody would benefit from the same thing. That's just- Yeah unfortunately true of humans. But one of the places I think there's an opportunity often is, and I think because it's such an aversive experience for so many people, is family dinner.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2Where it's, uh, one of the parents says, uh, "How was school?" And the kids say, "Fine." And then it's just silence, you know. And if you ask any more questions, the kids are like, "Can you please? Can you please?" So, um, one of the things that we did with our daughter and, and by the way, she went along with it for a while and now she's resistant, so you know, it's, there's a thing.
1Yep.
Speaker 2But we started a gratitude ritual, which was just before we eat, uh, you have to say one thing that you're grateful for. And what we're tr- what we were trying to do there was, um, kind of say, "This is a really important value for our family. We feel very fortunate. We should feel grateful, and we should, you know, um, use that feeling of gratefulness to help other people," I think. And, uh, it just gives you a little something to talk about as well. You know what, 'cause it is, it's not, it doesn't just say, what happened today. Kids will not answer that question. But if you say, "What are you grateful for today?" They can answer that. And even better is if you just say something you're grateful for, little kids get competitive and then- they wanna say what they're grateful for, make it even better than yours. And so we did that for a long, long time, actually, was just to, just to say, um- Let's make the meal a little bit more meaningful, and let's have something regular, um, that we do. I will say, um, my co-author, Liz Dunn, who I mentioned earlier, who we wrote the happiness book with, she tried it out with her, um, kids. Her, her son is, is older than my daughter. And they went around and said what they're grateful for, and he said, "I'm grateful that we don't have a gratitude ritual." So, so it's hard, you know, I mean, as- Yeah parents know, getting your kids to anything- I do is hard. So I wish I could say, "This is the ritual that will make your kids, you know, open up and share whatever." I don't have that. But I think- Well there are places like that where something is just not, like, working seamlessly-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2and it might be a place where we can try some out.
Noticing Rituals You Already Have
1So, um- When you, uh, Ray, collected all these examples of rituals, um, how many of them are you like, "I'm gonna try that one"? Like, are, are you bringing them into your existence? Do you suggest them to other people? Um, do you think of yourself as, like, the ritual advice person?
Speaker 2I don't think anybody who knows me would take advice from, from me about anything. But, um, I... What I have found actually is that the most common thing that happens, uh, so if I say, like, if I'm giving teaching or whatever, giving a talk, if I say, "Do you have any rituals?" People are like, "No. I don't-- Like I don't do, you know, I don't do that." Or, or they might say, "You know, I have my religious practice. That's the only-" Yeah ..."ritual I engage in." But then if I start talking about rituals, like clinking forks and, you know, gratitude at dinner and whatever else it might be, you can see people, not in every domain, but they're like, "Oh my God, I actually do something with-" Yep ..."my bedtime thing," or, "I do something with loss," or, "I do something when I'm anxious." And so a big part of it actually is not, um, the thing to do is add nine more tomorrow, but it's to notice the role they're already playing in your life and appreciate them a little bit more, and we, we see that. So when people have thought about rituals and noticed them for the first time, the next time they do them, they're a little bit more, like, special or a little bit more something because you're, you're like, "Oh my God, we're doing our thing." So your, your Dip Friday thing, it's like, "Oh, wow, this is like a, this is kind of like a ritual that we've been doing for years and years." Yeah. And yet, and, and you knew it. You know, it's not like you weren't aware- Yeah ...that you were repeating it. But sometimes they get imbued with a little bit more, like specialness, for lack of a better word.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2Just noticing the ones that are already happening already in your life.
1Right. So the other thing I'm, I've been wondering about is the relationship between kinds of rituals. So, you know, whether you brush your teeth or take a shower, in what sequence, the kinds of things you do as an individual a- across your day, across your year, and then the kinds of things you do together in a particular relationship. So clinking silverware versus, uh, larger rituals, so a mass, a wedding, a funeral, uh, right, certain holidays, those sorts of things. Are there differences i- in those things?
Speaker 2For sure. I think, uh, I-- probably there's more differences than I could even articulate. I think they have a core thing in common, but the manifestation of rituals can be for all sorts of different purposes and all sorts of different manifestations, for sure. I think, um, often the, uh, ones that we've received, whether they're cultural or, um, religious, have completely built into them a social component Because you gather-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2and then you do the ritual. I mean, it's kind of obvious. Of course you gather and then do the ritual. It's a, it's a group thing.
Thanksgiving as Coordination
Speaker 2But that's extremely important actually because, uh, it's a coordination mechanism for humans, right? So, um, w- I think about this a lot, so we ask people, um, in, in the US who, you know, Thanksgiving's a huge deal in the US. And if you ask people, um, like, uh, "Are you close with your cousins or your aunts and uncles?" And people will answer us, and then we say, "Well, when did you see them?" And they say, "Well, you know what? I only saw them actually like once a year, and it might be on Thanksgiving." Which means that Thanksgiving is the entire vehicle-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2for having an extended family. And if you said, "Hey, let's get together on a Thursday in March," nobody would do it, right? You, you can't do it. You're working on Thursday in March. So the culture literally in, in the US it's Thanksgiving, but it's different from country to country- Yep gave us this random Thursday to say, "No, on this Thursday you're gonna get together with people even if you don't like them, but you're gonna be a larger family for this one day." And so that's an incredible thing that they, even though it can be annoying, whatever, your uncle is a jerk or whatever it might be, they serve this function that I think our private ones, that's not as important for them. You know, we're not trying to coordinate across people to do something, but we need sometimes the official received ones in order to help us coordinate, um, in ways that can be really, I think, beneficial for us.
1Um, the other question I had was what about tradition? Like, is it... I was surprised that the word tradition, it doesn't really feature. Is tradition different or is... Yeah, how do you think about tradition?
Speaker 2I think, um, I would say like they're a subset of the big category of rituals, but that there are lots of different sort of subcategories within rituals. So superstitions, for example- I would say are a subcategory of rituals.
1Okay.
Speaker 2Traditions are a subcat-- You know, so you could think about the different ones 'cause they have at this top thing, it's like, again, it's how we do these things is the most important thing, and most traditions have that built exactly into them, which is it's not just that we're doing this- Mm-hmm it's how we're doing it. Even on Thanksgiving it's like, um, we always have whatever, this s- particular kind of apple pie because our great-grandfather used to make that k- kind of apple pie, and we will make it forever. So it's this very, it's a tradition that's received, but it's very important that we do it in exactly that way. And that I think is part of what gives them their power is that they have this weight of history on them. Even as we see people can come up with stuff from scratch and those can become meaningful as well.
1Uh-huh.
Rituals for Daily Meaning
1Um, the subtitle of your book talks about har- harnessing the power of rituals for e- everyday life. What, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2I think that, um, I, I use this- I mean, it's
1a good title.
Speaker 2Yeah. The marketing people. Uh, the... I mentioned this earlier about the kind of going through the motions feeling- Mm-hmm of life. I think, um, people have a lot of different solutions to get out of feeling like they're going through the motions, and some of them are, um, like healthier than others, I think is what I would say. And, um, rituals are a way that I think, and you said this earlier, we can kind of take these boring things and, and emotion them up a little bit and make them a little less, um, literally going through the motions. Like, m- many, many couples have something in the morning with coffee or tea- Right where somebody makes it for the other person. Technically speaking, you're just putting like a caffeinated beverage in your face, you know, if we break it down, but you just added a little bit to it where it becomes something about the two of you and your relationship. So they're not powerful, unfortunately, in the sense that if you do them, you become like the greatest athlete in the world or something like that, or your marriage is perfect from now on. I wish, but that's not how they work. But they're powerful in the sense that they can take things that a- almost have nothing in them and imbue them with something more that people can really find meaning in.
1Okay. Um, when you think about this book, so is-- are, are you done with ritual in your work? Are you, like, ritualed out? You mentioned, uh, when we were talking earlier, you're teaching a class on ritual. Has this given you new ways to think about ritual or it's over?
Speaker 2I'm not sure. So the, the way the research developed actually was, um... It's not like-- I always say we 'cause it's, it's me and, and lots of collaborators, um, over the years that have studied this together. Um, we didn't sit down and say, "Hey, here's nine domains of rituals. Let's study them, and then in a decade I'm gonna write a book." It's not sort of not how we went about it. What would happen was we would work in some domain of rituals, and I would talk about it, and somebody would say, "Hey, have you ever looked at them in-
1Yeah
Speaker 2whatever, grief, in romantic relationships, in the workplace, in, you know, in families, on holidays?" And so often that person was an expert in that, and so then we would do a project together on that, on that k-kind of ritual, and learn from that. And so it was very, um, in a nice way, organic- Mm-hmm because people just kept coming up with these amazing domains that we might not have thought of before. And it still happens all the time. People come up with domains that we did not study. Um, so there's, like, a lot more rituals going on than, you know, the, the tiny set that we wrote about. Mm-hmm. But I'm not sure it's like, um, the next decade of my life I'll do it again as opposed to work on some other things.
Teaching Ritual Confessions
1Um, tell me a little bit about teaching a course on this. What's that like for you?
Speaker 2It's w- so something that I love about talking about rituals is that, um, I'll exaggerate, but everybody does them somewhere in life. There's something that, that you're doing. And, um, people feel that they're weird. They will, uh, if I say, "Do you have any rituals?" People are like, "No, I don't wanna..." And then if I say some of mine, then people will-- It's almost like they're confessing-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2that they have them. So if I say like, "You know what? Before I teach, I feel nervous, and here's what I do every time before I teach," then other people will say, "Oh my God, I..." They literally will say, "I've never told anybody this, but what I do is..." And then they say some elaborate thing that they do when they're nervous before they, you know, do a sport- Yeah give a talk, give a presentation, whatever it might be. A, a super common one is go into the bathroom and talk to yourself in the mirror. That seems to be like the humans love that one for whatever reason.
1Yeah.
Speaker 2But one of the things I love about it is that it, it's this weird behavior where it's completely ubiquitous, and each person is like, "This is pretty weird." And so that is fascinating to me why we've come up with it that kind of way. Instead of saying like, "Oh my God, everybody does these. Let's, let's chat about them." So there's this weird, I don't... Maybe it's 'cause I'm Irish Catholic, but this confessional nature to it, but it also normalizes them, which is, you know, hey, if you're really nervous before you have to do something, we don't have a magical thing that will make you not nervous. Like, you know, you can take pill, you know, we have solutions and stuff like that. Right. But we don't have something where you can snap your fingers and be calm. And so, of course, one of the things we turn to are rituals, because we're turning to anything in order to help with our anxiety. And that aspect of it I really liked a lot is kind of the, um, yeah, confessional nature where, where everyone eventually says, "Oh, well, actually, I do this kind of thing, you know, myself, uh, in these sorts of situations."
1So, um, I find this fascinating that it is this kind of confessional nature of it. Um, do you seek, right, are you able to see patterns? So i-i-if you take, you know, sort of this rituals before being anxious, you mentioned lots of people talk to themselves in a mirror. Are there, yeah, that as I'm thinking about your next book on the seven best strategies Right? Like, is talking to yourself, right, does that seem to be a pattern where it doesn't-- is it really ad hoc? And so you've got people clinking silverware and butting heads or whatever- Yeah before a meal.
Speaker 2Um, we-- it's a great question. I think we see elements, um, of rituals that can kind of, um, kind of increase their emotional resonance, let's say. Mm. So, so repetition, for example, is something that y-you can often see, you know, when the couple's clinking forks for twenty years, it's different than when they're clinking it for a month kind of thing. So we can see that that regularity matters. And yet there are rituals that only happen one time that are incredibly meaningful. Like a w- well, you might get married more than once, but, you know Right a wedding is not something that we're repeating, and it gets more meaningful e-each time. And so repetition is important, but it's not necessary-
1Yeah
Speaker 2for it to be a ritual. Um, even something like, um, physical action or not. So most rituals have s- even talking to yourself, people will talk out loud to themselves in the mirror not just say it in their head, which is both are insane, and I say that affectionately- Yep, yep 'cause I do it too. But there's some action behind it. Yeah. You know, it's not just in my head. I'm gonna clink forks. I'm gonna do something else- Yeah in order to make it physical. And yet we also see people with rituals where there really isn't a physical component to it, and it really is something mental that they do. So another thing that's frustrating about studying it is we can see these features that matter- Mm-hmm but not where we can say if it has these seven things or six things- Yep, yep that means that it's a ritual, and without those, it's not one.
1Interesting.
Culture and Modern Rituals
1And similarly, do you, uh, do you see differences, you know, sort of, uh, typical ascriptive race, gender, religion, uh, socioeconomic status, national origin? Are there patterns across groups that are noteworthy, or is this really pretty idiosyncratic?
Speaker 2Um, when we look across It's a tricky question. So when we look across cultures or across time, I mean, social scientists have been studying rituals for quite some time. I'm not like the, I invented them or discovered them. Um, but a lot of them are anthropologists- Mm-hmm who were documenting rituals in, um, groups all over the world. And so the rituals often look completely different, you know, from one culture to another culture. But when you kind of take a step back, you can see that they're doing them for the same purpose. And so the, even if the manifestations are quite different, you can kinda trace back. It's like, you know, I'm making it up, but in these 13 domains of life, the humans seem to like to use the rituals in those. Mm-hmm. And then how they come out is very culturally specific and actually very, um, bound by time. So people have now lots of rituals around their phone. It turns out that 1,000 years ago, people did not have a lot of rituals around their phone because there's no phones. Right. So you can see actually that, that, uh, it looks very, very different, you know, 'cause it's a phone instead of something else, but the underlying impulse often you can see that it's actually quite similar. How random it can get, I don't know. We've seen people build in, you know, phones in their, in their car, in their silverware, in their shampoo. You know, the, the range of things that people build in is quite wide. And I'm not... I'm sure there is, but I'm not sure what the upper bound is on, you know, how random or different they can be around the world.
1Great.
Audience Q and A
1Um, so questions are teeing up, so I wanna turn to a couple of them now, if you don't mind. Sure. Um, uh, someone has a very pragmatic question. "I make my wife a latte every morning, but it feels more like a habit because it's during the rush-rushed chaos of the morning with our two daughters. How could I ritualize, uh, this latte to elevate our connection as a married couple?"
Speaker 2Uh, I'm not a marriage counselor either, just to be clear. Exactly. There's an episode of, um, the show This Is Us, which, uh, if, if you wa- Basically, This Is Us is a show that's designed to make you weep every single episode. And so one of the episodes- Mm-hmm um, I don't wanna get too into the details of it, but, but one character is explaining how he knew his marriage was over. And he says, um... It's Miguel, if anybody's curious. He says, um, "Uh, every morning I made my wife a coffee and I brought it to her, and, uh, one morning I just didn't feel like doing it." And you can already f- I mean, again, caffeinated beverage in your face, however. And then even more devastatingly, he says, "And she didn't even notice." So you have this, like, so painful based on coffee, and you can see what it means and how much of an emblem it is. It doesn't take a ton, actually, to just build it into something that's more meaningful. I would guess if you ask your wife about it, if you said, "I'm not gonna do it anymore," she might not like it 'cause she wants coffee, but sh- she might also be like, "Why isn't he doing it anymore?" Like, "What's going on where this thing is now out of the picture?" So it may, in fact, al- to our earlier conversation, already have some of the emotional resonance in it, even if it feels to you like you're just running around trying to get stuff done.
1That's
Speaker 2great. Your ex- your example from earlier, the dip Friday, is you were just running around trying to deal with kids and deal with work and deal with everything, just trying to get it done, and yet it became imbued with this, you know, m- deeper meaning for, for the entire family.
1Great. Um, next one. I am working on a project to help parents have resources to aid their children in building virtues that lead to godly character. Would it be appropriate, uh, uh, to view rituals, um, these habits that become virtues? How might rituals differ from virtues? So both have a practice element- Mm-hmm but yeah, how would you disentangle the two?
Speaker 2I mentioned, um, our family ritual, our gratitude ritual that we try to do at dinner, but if you survey families, they have many, many different kinds of rituals that they, that they do And almost always there's some underlying principle or virtue under it. So for us, it was, it was, um, we are fortunate, and we should feel grateful, and we should use that gratitude to do some sort of good in the world. All it was was like something ha- like somebody held the door for me today. You know, they're not these huge things that happen, but the idea is to make that a practice. But other families have different values that they build into their rituals that they do as a family, and it's very, um, family specific. W- And we even see, uh, when we do research on groups at work, we can even see that, um, the rituals that people do in groups at work reflect an underlying value that they care about in terms of their team at work. So when, um, the COVID happened and many people, you know, went remote, um, they were disruptive to all of our rituals, as everybody knows, like weddings and funerals and everything. But, um, they were disruptive to our work rituals too, like we get to the office and we chat, and then we have this meeting and things like that. And so the idea was that, um, being remote was, was ruining our rituals, that it was kind of taking all the meaning away. And instead what we... And I promise this is related to the question. And instead what we saw was, um, people would again just freelance and make up new ones to try to cover the gap. So you could say, "Oh my God, I hated doing those. Let's not do them anymore." And instead, most people said, "Let's figure out a way to keep doing them." And there was this one work group that always struck me where, um, at the beginning of every meeting, they would quickly click the emoji that ex- expressed how they were feeling that day. So, you know, you have the sc- the screen, as we all know, the screen with all the faces, and you just kind of get hit with the emotion of the group. And you can really quickly kinda take the average, you know, of how everybody's doing, and you can also see if there's some people who are struggling. And what was so interesting about this group is they had never done anything like that before in person. They never did anything like it. And in fact, it would be weird to go around the table in the morning and have each person say how they're feeling because it's like you're completely on the spot. But they developed this thing where you can just quickly kind of shout out how you're doing, and I can see maybe there's someone I need to follow up with later without it being this huge deal. And of course, the value... Sorry to go back to that, but the value underlying that was we're not just people who work together in an office. We are people who care about each other in some different way. And so your emotional wellbeing matters to me, and the way that I'll show that every single day is by checking on your emotional wellbeing. And by the way, I'm gonna share mine with you as well because it has to be reciprocal for us to have a closer relationship.
1I like that. That's great. Thank you. Um Let me see. Uh, do you have any recommendations for helping someone, maybe a family member, de-ritualize some parts of
Speaker 2their life? I w- I would love more context on that. If you, if you can chat in more, um, that would be fascinating. Um, I will-- I'm gonna plead ignorance because, um, it's, it's, uh... I, I am a, a psychologist, but I'm a social psychologist. Uh, clinical psychologists have amazing treatments for OCD and for ritualistic behavior. Much of it is... I'm not-- I, I shouldn't even say much. One of the treatments that seems to be somewhat effective is cognitive behavioral therapy, which is sort of a thought restructuring around what it is that you're doing to try to kind of bump you out of having to do the ritual over and over again. Um, eh, I'm sure there's clinical psychologists or psychiatrists on the webinar who are horrified at my explanation, so I apologize. So don't take my word for it. But there are definitely people who literally their job is to try to help people who've gotten too in the weeds on their rituals to try to kind of bring them back out a little bit.
Business Rituals and Brands
1Um, just, just thinking about this and, and going back to where you work, um, so how do we think about business and ritual? And, you know, sort of how, how does this affect, yeah, sort of the business? How do we think in those terms?
Speaker 2It's, you know, it's funny because th-this is not my observation, but we spend much, much more time with the people we work with than with our family and friends, which is just a f- it's just a fact. It's not my observation, it's just a fact Um, and so it would be odd actually, if we didn't start bringing rituals to work. Because if we bring them to bear in all these other domains of life, and we've got all these hours to fill every single day at work-
1Right
Speaker 2are we gonna bring rituals to them? And of course, we see people bringing rituals to them. I mentioned the team kinds of rituals with the, the specific one with the emojis, but many, many teams have some kind of ritual with how they start things, or how they end things, or what they do during the meeting.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2And those can be quite important for them. And lots of people have a ritual on leaving work behind at the end of the day. So we did this research on emergency room nurses who have, I think, I can't say that, but has to be one of the top two most stressful jobs i- in the world, and very hard time leaving work behind because of the stress and emotion of the day. And of course, when we ask them, "What do you do at the end of the day? Do you have anything that you do regularly that's important to you, that's specific to you?" So many of them say, "Yes, I do." And they'll... O- one person said that they, um, they took a shower and they imagined the hospital going down the drain. Hmm. And they... That's how they were trying to leave work behind. On the one hand, you can say that's insane. Like, why would that work? On the other hand, how else are you supposed to leave an incredibly stressful job? Again, we don't have a magic solution to do it, so people turn to ritual. So you can see, like from the coffee in the morning, whether you're making it for your spouse or your partner, to leaving work behind at the end of the day. In the workday too, they're kind of just filtered in to how our days are structured at work in the s- in a similar way that they're structured into our personal lives.
1Great. Um, it seems like there may be a connection between ritualizing aspects of our daily lives and the virtues of care and patience. Um, a ritual makes something, uh, not only more meaningful, but also might inject some care or patience into tasks that we might see as burdensome. Does this align with your thinking?
Speaker 2I love that idea. I don't know if we've We certainly haven't tackled that with research, um, at this point. I do think there's an element, uh, when you kind of notice the rituals that you're doing with the people you care about, it does bring another element of care- Mm-hmm into it, that, that this is the thing that we do that shows how much we care about each other. So I think there's, um, underpinning some of them, I think that idea of, of care taking place. But we haven't actually... It's a great question. We haven't actually looked at the kind of almost the humility and, and patience that- Mm with caregiving that, that rituals might lend, which is among the many difficult things about caregiving, um- Yeah you know, the patience and, and ability to continue to care even though you're completely burned out, speaking of our emergency room nurses, is so important. But we haven't, uh, tackled that in the, in the way I think that the person's thinking.
1Great. Um, do any companies use rituals to strengthen bonds with customers, uh, marketing applications, et cetera?
Speaker 2The, uh... So I used to be in, in marketing for my first 15 years of my career. Um, now I teach negotiations, which is like marketing under a different name a little bit. Not selling, I guess. But, um, you can... I- if you type the word ritual and brand-
1Mm-hmm
Speaker 2into Google and hit search, you can do image search, actually.
1Yep.
Speaker 2It is unbelievable the number of brands that not-- We can get to, do they have you do rituals when you consume them? The answer is yes. Yeah. Literally have the word ritual in their name.
1Ah.
Speaker 2So there's like, I'm gonna, I won't have them all. There's an apparel company, there's a jewelry company, there's a tea company, a coffee company, there's an alcohol company where it's ritual something. Some of them are literally just called Ritual. There's a store, a chain of stores called, just called Ritual.
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2So, so marketers clearly have the idea that the word ritual itself does something to us. It brings us into it in a different way. And then we... Which is a pretty recent development, actually, which is we haven't kind of looked into the time course of it, but it seems to have exploded actually in the last ten or so years, the number of brands using the word. But we also see brands encouraging you to engage with the product in a kind of a ritualistic, um, fashion.
Oreos and Consumption Rituals
Speaker 2My, uh, totally mundane but favorite one is with Oreos. So, um, on the packaging of Oreos, they kind of have the twisting thing. They show you kind of the twisting thing. And people have very specific ways that they eat Oreos, and they care a lot about... You can Google actual... D- look up that online too on Reddit. You'll get some people who very care a lot about this. But what they're doing is it's just like a, a cookie. You know, I like cookies. Cookies are great. But it isn't really any different from another cookie. But just with the how you eat it, suddenly it's changed into something different that people care a lot more about. If it's just what you're eating, it's just a cookie. If it's how you're eating it, it's imbued with a little bit more, and people are gonna love doing it their way, and get really mad sometimes at people who are doing it the wrong way.
1Great. Um, so what are you working on now? Now
Speaker 2I am trying to, um, a little bit actually working on humility. Maybe that's why that came to mind for me, um, as well. In, um, a couple of ways. I think one is, um, sort of understanding... So if you interact with someone and they are in your mind being a jerk, let's say, to rather than say, "This person's a jerk, and they hate me, and I hate them," to think about them as, um, a full person who has a distribution of days, and reflect on your own distribution of days as well. I have had days where I think I'm a wonderful, wonderful person to everything, and I have had days where I am not. I've had days as a parent where I'm the most patient parent in the world, and days when I'm not. And so when someone is being a jerk to you, you can either say, "They're a jerk," or you can say, "Huh, they're a whole person with a distribution of days. Maybe this happens to be one of their days that's not going well for them, in the same way that I have days that aren't going well for me. Let me not be so certain of everything that I'm judging other people for and have a little humility in how I think about other people based on having a little bit of, um, uh, not humility for myself, but care for myself, forgiveness of myself- Yeah, yeah in order to be humble enough to allow other people to be imperfect also."
1So, and if you don't mind, how, how are you doing that work?
Speaker 2We can ask people, um- For example, we can ask people, like, how happy are you with your life overall?
1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2And people can tell us, you know, they're an eight out of 10 or whatever. Then we can track them for weeks and weeks, and each day ask them how happy they are that day. And what you can see is that there's a distribution that even people who are really happy with their lives have terrible days.
1Uh-huh.
Speaker 2And even people who are really unhappy with their lives have great days. And we can actually show it visually that everybody has this distribution of days, and then I can show you those distributions, and that can help you see, like, oh my God, I have a distribution myself. Right. I see that other people do as well. Let me try to bring a different mindset to these interactions.
1That's great. I love that. Um, but with that, I think we're gonna have to call it. Uh, this has just been great, great fun, uh, hearing more about your book, "The Ritual Effect." Everybody should get it. It's a, it's a whole lot of fun, so thank you.
Speaker 2Thank
1you so much.
Speaker 2Um,
1and please join us on March 23rd, uh, for a special webinar with Cameron Kim, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, and Laura Dunham, Dean of the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. Both are auto-authors in our latest magazine, and they'll be in a conversation about joy. So thank you, Michael. I really appreciate you joining us today, and I hope your power stays on despite the snowpocalypse there.
Speaker 2Thanks so much, Suzanne.