What makes groups emotional?

Abstract

When people experience emotions in a group, their emotions tend to have stronger intensity and to last longer, why is that? This question has occupied thinkers throughout history and with the increased use of digital media it is even more pressing than ever. Historically, attention has focused on the amplification driven by the way emotions are communicated and shared between people via emotional interactions. While interactions are a major driver of group emotionality, I argue that understanding group emotionality requires a broader view which integrates two additional processes: how emotions unfold within the social infrastructure in which they are communicated, and how these processes are affected by people’s cognition about others’ emotions. I propose an infrastructure, cognition, interaction framework that contributes to a broader understanding of group emotionality, which should improve our ability to explain and predict group emotionality and to change these emotions when they are undesired.

The Psychology of Collectives

“…Collectives can amplify or dampen individual emotions (Goldenberg, 2024), beliefs (Goldstone et al, 2024; Rabb et al, 2024; Vlasceanu et al, 2024; Warren et al, 2024), decision accuracy (Broomell & Davis-Stober, 2024; Martel et al, 2024), and cooperation tendencies (Fiedler et al, 2024).…”

“…Only one article specifically discusses collective emotions , an area in need of further research. Goldenberg (2024) proposes a framework to understand why groups tend to amplify individual emotions, emphasizing the interplay of the communication of emotions, individual cognitions about others’ emotions, and the social infrastructure in which the emotions are shared.…”