Paper short abstract:

We create patterns of behavior (institutions) in rituals, and our study shows this can be enjoyable. It also shows institutionalization can be practiced. This gives hope that building sustainable institutions can be emotionally rewarding, and learned.

Paper long abstract:

Much of human life is guided by institutions: routinized behavior, understandings, expectations, and rules. Understanding the generation and consolidation of institutions is therefore critical in order to establish patterns of behavior that are more sustainable.

Our ethnographic study of live action role playing (larp) in The Netherlands shows that institution-building can be an emotionally rewarding process and that this happens through ritual. The data shows how micro-sociological processes generate a moment of elated enthusiasm (effervescence), which produces feelings of group membership, a shared morality, shared symbols, and the experience of emotional energy, even when participants are fully aware they are in a fictitious world. We argue that this process is at the heart of sociological institutionalization and that it is intrinsically rewarding to people. This is a hopeful finding, because it means that: (Un)making institutions can be fun, and it can be practiced.