What Happens When We Lose Our Social Rituals鈥攁nd How to Make New Ones

By understanding the purpose of shared rituals, we can try to preserve their intent and create a sense of shared emotion and connection.

When the shelter-in-place orders came down in California, the first thing I thought of was my cousin鈥檚 wedding鈥攖he one I was supposed to officiate. I鈥檇 been working on creating a special ceremony since the fall. But once the pandemic kicked in, everything was canceled.

Perhaps my cousin is luckier than some鈥攁fter all, a wedding can be rescheduled. Even so, he had to let go of a cherished dream of when and how his wedding would take place.

He鈥檚 certainly not alone. Many people have had to give up important shared rituals鈥攇raduation ceremonies, prom nights, long-awaited concerts, religious services, opening-day baseball, and even funerals. The loss, while necessary, is profound.

What can we do to cope? Can we learn something from this experience that will help us carry on? What will it mean for the future of our social fabric?

No one knows exactly how forgoing shared rituals will affect us individually or as a society. However, science does give us some clues. By understanding the purpose of shared rituals, we can try to preserve their intent and create a sense of shared emotion, connection, and transcendence.

Why We Have Shared Rituals

Shared rituals play an important role in our psyches, according to social psychologist Shira Gabriel. suggests that rituals鈥攃horeographed events that produce an emotionally laden experience鈥攃reate a feeling of unity and sacredness that bonds us together with others.

鈥淩ituals give us a feeling of going beyond the ordinary鈥攐f having a moment that transcends that, turning events into something special and meaningful,鈥� Gabriel says.

A groom and bride livestream their wedding ceremony at a Civil Registry Office on the first Sunday after Orthodox Easter in Moscow, Russia, on April 26, 2020. Relatives and friends are not allowed to attend marriage ceremonies because of safety measures aimed at countering the spread of the novel coronavirus disease. Photo by Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS/Getty Images.

Why transcendent? Because when we participate in ritual, we experience a sort of emotion contagion that sociologist 脡mile Durkheim called 鈥渃ollective effervescence.鈥� That uplift and energy increase our sense of commonality (even with strangers) and make us feel we are part of a larger community. It鈥檚 why we can feel so bonded to fellow Golden State Warriors fans at a game or so unified during a protest march.

Gabriel says that we often create shared rituals when we go through important life transitions, too, because they mark the passage of time as sacred. Weddings, funerals, and graduations, for example, all give us a sense of meaning, which makes forgoing them so hard.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no doubt that people are going to grieve and are going to feel sad about the loss of what they had planned,鈥� she says.

Losing out on shared rituals may also be difficult for society at large, sociologist Randall Collins argues. has suggested that when people stop gathering to share emotional experiences, their sense of oneness tends to dissipate, even after experiencing a community tragedy as unifying as 9/11.

He wonders whether the same might happen with the coronavirus outbreak, especially given the need for 鈥渟ocial distancing.鈥� A big event involving the whole country鈥攁nd, in fact, the whole world鈥攚ill make 鈥渆verybody focus on the same thing and feel the same emotions,鈥� which creates a sense of solidarity. At the same time, however, we lose face-to-face interaction with other people. Can email, phone conversations, and Zoom meetings make up for that loss? 鈥淚 would say the evidence is sort of a yes, but to a weaker degree,鈥� Collins says.

Mary Fierros waves at the line of cars driving by her home during a parade celebrating her 100 birthday in San Jose, California, on April 20, 2020. Fierros is an original Rosie the Riveter who worked on B-29 aircraft during World War II. Photo by Randy Vazquez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/Getty Images.

Gabriel agrees that there is something special about in-person rituals. But findings suggest that collective effervescence and social solidarity don鈥檛 happen only during bigger public events; they can occur even in everyday interactions, too, such as watching TV together or attending an interesting lecture. This means we can create that uplift more easily than we might think.

鈥淓veryday moments of collective effervescence can make us feel more connected to others, and make us feel as if our life has meaning,鈥� Gabriel says. 鈥淥ur research suggests that people who experience these things a lot are likely to be happier and feel less anxious and depressed.鈥�

Creating More Collective Effervescence Now

It鈥檚 good to know that losing shared rituals isn鈥檛 dire. That doesn鈥檛 mean giving them up is easy.

Therapist , author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, worries that people might discount their losses as trivial by comparing themselves to others who may be suffering more serious losses, such as losing a job or loved one. But, she adds, not being able to fulfill life dreams or expectations can be painful, too, and may require grieving.

鈥淧eople need to be able to talk about what they鈥檙e experiencing, because these are real losses,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not here to rank each other鈥檚 losses in terms of which one is more valid or which one is more significant.鈥�

She points to her own losses from the coronavirus outbreak鈥攈er teen son will miss his last semester of eighth grade, and she can鈥檛 hold a funeral after her father鈥檚 death or sit shiva for him (a Jewish tradition that helps the bereaved honor the passing of their loved ones). Dismissing those losses or not accepting our feelings of loss is not the answer.

A family sits shiva, a traditional Jewish time of mourning for the dead when friends and family gather, remotely on Zoom, for an elderly relative who died of heart failure in New Canaan, Connecticut, on April 11, 2020. Because the relative died during the COVID-19 pandemic, family members were unable to say goodbye in the hospital or make plans for a funeral. Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images.

鈥淎s parents, partners, family members, and friends, we need to allow people to talk about the things that they鈥檙e missing,鈥� she says.

That doesn鈥檛 preclude reframing a loss in more positive terms or looking for potential in our current experience, she adds. Being at home with less to do and more free time may give people new opportunities for intimacy, such as calling up old friends or spending time with children who are usually away at school.

鈥淚nstead of focusing on the things that you don鈥檛 have, you can look at all of the new things that you do have right now,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot to be gained in the midst of loss, in the form of community and connection.鈥�

How to Make New Rituals

Sheltering in place could also inspire people to create alternative events to mark special occasions, she says, such as a Zoom dance party to celebrate a graduation, which might even end up being more memorable than what was originally planned.

Jan Stanley, who works as a celebrant鈥攕omeone who designs rituals for weddings and funerals鈥攕ays that it鈥檚 not hard to create rituals online, if you keep certain things in mind. She suggests that you:

鈥� Ask people to bring to their online gathering something symbolic to share, such as a candle to light, a memory or story, a picture, or a poem. Getting people to contribute in that way can help create a sense of oneness.

鈥� Mark the moment by having someone provide an opening statement that designates the beginning of any ritual and explains the purpose of being there. That sets the tone and makes people realize that this is a special moment in time and not just another online meeting.

鈥� Create emotional highs, perhaps using music, dancing, poetry, moments of silence, or something else with high emotional resonance to augment the experience.

鈥� Always have a distinct ending that includes an emotional peak, because people an event better that way.

Though an online ritual may lack some of the power of an in-person ritual, says Stanley, it still has value. Even doing rituals alone can be useful, she adds, if it鈥檚 meaningful. Research suggests that creating rituals just for ourselves can help after loss and , which could help now, when the world seems so uncertain.

鈥淚f you can design a ritual to be meaningful鈥攕o that it actually touches your heart or brings someone to mind or gives you a sense of your own purpose鈥攁ll the better,鈥� she says.

Gabriel, the social psychologist, encourages people to also look beyond formalized rituals to everyday opportunities to share positive emotion and a sense of solidarity from a distance.

How people from Detroit social distance:
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She points to examples from her own neighborhood, where people are putting up rainbows in their windows, drawing pictures on the sidewalk for others to see when they walk by, or leaving notes for one another on the ends of driveways. She mentions widely shared online videos showing people singing from their balconies, cheering in appreciation of health care workers, or creating drive-by birthday parades.

鈥淧eople are drawn to collective rituals like these for a reason鈥攚e want to feel connected to other people and to feel a sensation of sacredness,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hese kinds of events should bring on those same sorts of feelings.鈥�

Once the shelter-in-place orders have been lifted, though, Gabriel hopes we鈥檒l gain a renewed appreciation for shared rituals.

鈥淗opefully, we鈥檒l go back to them, and we鈥檒l value them even more than we do now,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd, maybe we鈥檒l have learned some new tricks along the way, some new ways to connect to other people that we didn鈥檛 have before.鈥�

This article originally appeared on , the online magazine of the at UC Berkeley.

Jill Suttie is book review editor of the online magazine Greater Good, published by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and a frequent contributer to the magazine.