Studies examining the effects of religious/spiritual practices have not sufficiently investigated the role of their underlying meaning-making frameworks in driving their effects. Across three experiments, we examined whether increasing the psychological salience of Shabbat among Jews had a greater impact—on feelings of security, positive and negative emotions (Study 1), prosocial emotions (Study 2), and transcendence (Study 3)—than primes of a nonreligious vacation day or a routine workday.
We examined whether this effect was moderated by level of religiosity and attachment to God. Participants (n = 240 for each of the three studies) were administered surveys on religiosity/spirituality and randomized to reflect on experiences of Shabbat or the two secular analogs. Then, outcome measures were administered. Consistently, the Shabbat prime led to more favorable outcomes than the two control groups (d range = .43–.53), except for negative emotion and distress while witnessing others’ suffering.
Outcomes did not differ between control conditions. Group differences were not moderated by interaction effects with experimental condition and general religiosity or religious attachment. Across three experiments, priming participants to reflect on Shabbat yielded consistently more favorable psychological outcomes than secular analogs.
Effects of ritual behavior may be enhanced by processes of religious meaning-making beyond ritual behavior alone. Heightening the symbolic and emotional salience of meaning may reinforce the potential benefits of religious practices or spiritual exercises.

Keywords: Religious ritual, Prosocial emotions, Well-being, Attachment theory, Broaden-and-build theory