United on Sunday: The effects of secular rituals on social bonding and affect

Abstract

Religious rituals are associated with health benefits, potentially produced via social bonding. It is unknown whether secular rituals similarly increase social bonding. We conducted a field study with individuals who celebrate secular rituals at Sunday Assemblies and compared them with participants attending Christian rituals. We assessed levels of social bonding and affect before and after the rituals. Results showed the increase in social bonding taking place in secular rituals is comparable to religious rituals. We also found that both sets of rituals increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, and that the change in positive affect predicted the change in social bonding observed. Together these results suggest that secular rituals might play a similar role to religious ones in fostering feelings of social connection and boosting positive affect.

Fig 1. The inclusion of others in self (adapted from 60) question used as part of the social bonding scale.

Fig 2

Notched boxplot showing pre-ritual and post-ritual social bonding in Sunday Assembly (blue) and Church (red) participants. The notch (indent) around the median shows the 95% confidence interval. The whiskers are +/- 1.5*IQR from the upper and lower quartiles. The diagonal lines show the mean change for the two sets of participants.

Fig 3. Notched boxplots showing pre-ritual and post-ritual (a) PANAS+ and (b) PANAS- in Sunday Assembly (blue) and Church (red) participants.

The notch (indent) around the median shows the 95% confidence interval. The whiskers are +/- 1.5*IQR from the upper and lower quartiles. The diagonal lines show the mean change for the two sets of participants.