Past studies have shown that lonely people often feel their lives lack meaning
Meaning can be forged by rituals even those based on product consumption
Experts surveyed people about their loneliness and practice of consumer rituals
They found that the lonelier people were, the more little rituals they followed
In addition, performing rituals helped abate induced loneliness in experiments
Brands, the team said, can foster customer engagement by selling them rituals
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If you dunk a tea bag repeatedly into your mug or open a cream-filled cookie to lick the filling, you might find coping with pandemic isolation a bit easier than others.
A UC Riverside-led study has found people who adopt unique rituals to make everyday tasks more meaningful might feel less lonely. We found that something as simple as preparing tea in a certain way, as long as it s interpreted as a ritual, can make the experience more meaningful, said Thomas Kramer, a professor of marketing at UC Riverside s School of Business. This makes people feel less lonely.
The paper, published in the