Social psychological theories underlying holidays and group celebrations

Katie Spangenberg and Eric R. Spangenberg

Chapter 26 in Handbook of Social Psychology and Consumer Behavior, 2026, pp 377-388 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Cultures around the world engage in a variety of religious and/or secular forms of holiday observance and other celebrations. With consumption practices often central to such celebrations, they offer enormous opportunities for consumer behavior researchers, yet little scholarship has drawn on social psychology theory to examine them. While specific holidays are often associated with unique customs and rituals, we argue that the underlying motivations of such practices are arguably consistent across humanity. Holidays and other special celebrations are first and foremost social constructs created by and shared among people… we typically do not observe holidays or many kinds of celebrations alone. From this perspective, our chapter considers five major social psychological theories foundational to the observance of holidays and group celebrations, irrespective of cultural origin or global location. Theoretical underpinnings for different celebrations and holiday observances are considered with future research opportunities for consumer social psychologists emerging from our discussion.

Keywords: Holidays; Celebrations; Rituals; Social identity theory; Social exchange; Cognitive dissonance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035327591
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