I fear that part of my comment was not entirely clear...
Let me ask you this: do you actually want to group bond? This is quite a separate question from “based on research, I believe group bonding will make me happier”.
For myself, I sometimes think: “Hm, I like this person/these people; they are cool and interesting. I enjoy hanging out with them, and intend to continue doing so in the future.”
I can’t imagine myself thinking “Hm, I want to group bond with some people/these people. What can I do that will have that effect?”
That is, group bonding seems to be the goal here. Is it actually something that you directly want, or is this a case of “research says that it will make me happier, and I want to be happier, so I will do this”?
P.S. As for the church goers… yes, I can believe that they are happier (although that’s “happier on average”, right?). I don’t think we should therefore conclude that they have the right idea about this whole ritual-as-group-bonding thing.
Yes, group bonding is something I directly want, because I’ve enjoyed it in other contexts before. For one thing, I’m not that good at making casual friendships, and given a casual social setting, I won’t get very close to people. I wouldn’t have traveled to New York just to hang out. Participating in a more structured group activity makes people more likely to actually get together and connect with each other. Also, ritual is good for bringing up topics (death, hope) that are hard to bring up in casual conversation. Once introduced in a structured way like a ritual, the topics are easier to address afterwards in unstructured conversation.
Also, I think community support is a good thing that most of us don’t have enough of. Group bonding helps produce a norm of helping each other, even if we’re not especially interested in every group member as an individual.
I imagine group bonding is valuable because of reasons like “I want to adapt those values and behaviors, because they seem useful, but I can’t individually self-modify—I should find a group that follows these behaviors/values, so that I can adapt them via peer pressure.” At least, that’s my perspective.
I fear that part of my comment was not entirely clear...
Let me ask you this: do you actually want to group bond? This is quite a separate question from “based on research, I believe group bonding will make me happier”.
For myself, I sometimes think: “Hm, I like this person/these people; they are cool and interesting. I enjoy hanging out with them, and intend to continue doing so in the future.”
I can’t imagine myself thinking “Hm, I want to group bond with some people/these people. What can I do that will have that effect?”
That is, group bonding seems to be the goal here. Is it actually something that you directly want, or is this a case of “research says that it will make me happier, and I want to be happier, so I will do this”?
P.S. As for the church goers… yes, I can believe that they are happier (although that’s “happier on average”, right?). I don’t think we should therefore conclude that they have the right idea about this whole ritual-as-group-bonding thing.
Yes, group bonding is something I directly want, because I’ve enjoyed it in other contexts before. For one thing, I’m not that good at making casual friendships, and given a casual social setting, I won’t get very close to people. I wouldn’t have traveled to New York just to hang out. Participating in a more structured group activity makes people more likely to actually get together and connect with each other. Also, ritual is good for bringing up topics (death, hope) that are hard to bring up in casual conversation. Once introduced in a structured way like a ritual, the topics are easier to address afterwards in unstructured conversation.
Also, I think community support is a good thing that most of us don’t have enough of. Group bonding helps produce a norm of helping each other, even if we’re not especially interested in every group member as an individual.
I imagine group bonding is valuable because of reasons like “I want to adapt those values and behaviors, because they seem useful, but I can’t individually self-modify—I should find a group that follows these behaviors/values, so that I can adapt them via peer pressure.” At least, that’s my perspective.