The communal consumption experience: sharing, rituals, & socialization

The communal consumption experience is not a new phenomenon. In fact, from an anthropological perspective, this behavior originally developed out of hunter-gatherer and tribal eras where resources that were harder to get and less certain to be acquired were more likely to be shared communally (Kameda et al., 2003). Thus, shared consumption was initially a function of survival. However, as civilization evolved this practice expanded to include motivations related to both survival and sociality. A vast array of different communities throughout time have placed great significance on communal consumption experiences revolving around occasions of drinking, eating, and gift giving as a part of their celebrations, rituals, and traditions (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). As such, the communal consumption phenomenon can be thought of as being both environmentallyand culturally driven. In modern society, we typically find that communal consumption is predominately a function of socialization. Communal interactions [e.g. sharing a bottle of wine with others] are thought to provide wide social benefits for individuals. For example, social interactions with both strong ties [i.e. friends & family] and weak ties [i.e. co-workers & acquaintances] are associated with enhanced affective responses, as well as greater social and emotional well-being (e.g. happiness, feelings of belongingness, etc.; Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014). Specifically with regard to social wine consumption, while many aspects of this communal experience have undoubtedly remained consistent throughout time, the way in which we partake or share in this social consumption experience has changed dramatically in contemporary periods. This is especially the case in the past few years when a global pandemic has necessitated social distancing and quarantining procedures that have disrupted traditional methods of communal consumption, while increasing the desire for these kinds of shared experiences and social connections. Considering the prevalence of market-based activities revolving around social wine consumption, as well as recent environmental and cultural changes in communal consumption experiences, we still know relatively little about this phenomenon. As a starting point, prior research on adjacent topics can be applied to our context to spur research in this area. For example, Wakefield and Inman (2003) find that both hedonic consumption occasions [e.g. celebratory drinks] and social consumption occasions [e.g. drinking wine with friends] lead to reductions in price sensitivity. This line of inquiry would suggest that communal wine consumption likely has a positive influence on important brandrelated purchase behaviors. Moreover, as communal consumption has been linked to social and emotional well-being (Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014), it is possible that exclusion from these experiences may have a negative impact on consumers’ mental and emotional health. For instance, exclusion from social consumption activities has been related to increased preferences for hot drinks (purportedly in an attempt to warm oneself; Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008), while social interactions have been associated with cold drink preferences (ostensibly in order to cool oneself; Lee et al., 2014). While the effect of exclusion or isolation from