The Ritual Dimension of Consumer Behavior

In daily living, people participate regularly in a variety of ritualized activities at home, work, and play, both as individuals and as members of some larger community. The average person also relies on various ritual events to mark such significant life passages as graduation, marriage, and death. Despite these pervasive and meaningful ritual experiences, consumer research has largely failed to recognize this extensive behavioral domain. The present article introduces and elaborates the ritual construct as a vehicle for interpreting consumer behavior and presents the results of two exploratory studies that investigate the artifactual and psychosocial contents of young adults' personal grooming rituals.