Ritual
Formalized, repeated, symbolically loaded action treated by its participants as accomplishing real social or transformative work, even when nothing physically changes in the person undergoing it. Sally Falk Moore and Barbara Myerhoff argued ritual is defined by its formal properties — repetition, fixed sequence, symbolic content, a claim to special significance — rather than by any necessary connection to the sacred, extending the category to graduations, courtroom proceedings, and driver's license tests.