Collective Effervescence

It is in our human nature to be nurtured, to connect with other living beings especially people.  Cathy Malchiodi explains in Please Don't Take My Collective Effervescence Away, a 2021 Psychology Today article how at a basic, physiological level humans experience entrainment and at a psychological level they experience synchrony which can lead to collective effervescence, a powerful shared experience with intense emotion. 

Rime and Paez's 2023 Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically Documented, at Émile Durkheim’s Theory of Collective Assemblies and Collective Effervescence is a meta analysis of research of "conditions of reduced self-other differentiation. Abundant data support that each successive moment of collective assemblies contributes to blurring this differentiation. Ample support also exists that because shared emotions are increasingly amplified in collective context, they can fuel high-intensity experiences. Moreover, recent studies of self-transcendent emotions can account for the self-transformative effects described by Durkheim at the climax of collective assemblies. In conclusion, this century-old model is remarkably supported by recent results, mostly collected in experimental settings."

Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center has studied the power of shared human emotion, especially compassion and awe, and how humans express emotion, and how emotions guide moral identities and search for meaning. Keltner's research interests also span issues of power, status, inequality, and social class. He is the author of The Power Paradox and the bestselling book Born to Be Good, and the coeditor of The Compassionate Instinct. His most recent book, Awe, is a national bestseller. Keltner explains collective effervescence here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOKedWZU_wY

The Beauty of Collective Effervescence, a lesson from Keltner and the Greater Good Science Center.

Exploring the Sources of Collective Effervescence; A Multilevel Study by Lasse Liebst from University of Copenhagen:

Creating the sacred from the profane: Collective effervescence and everyday activities (2019) by Shira Gabriel, et. al. available from APA Psychnet

Abstract:

The current research examines the hypothesis that collective effervescence—the sense of connection and meaning that comes from collective events—is not just useful for understanding rare, unusual, and intense collective events, but also as a framework for understanding how seemingly insignificant and/or common collective gatherings (i.e. ‘everyday events’) may give meaning, a sense of connection, and joy to life. We found evidence for our hypothesis across nine different studies utilizing eleven datasets and over 2500 participants. The first three studies found that collective effervescence is best understood as a combination of feeling connected to others and a sensation of sacredness. The next four studies found that collective effervescence is found in common, everyday kinds of events and that it is related to various aspects of enjoying group activities. The last two studies found that collective effervescent experiences are common; three quarters of people experience collective effervescence at least once a week and a third experience them every day. Moreover, commonly experiencing collective effervescence predicts wellbeing above and beyond the effects of other kinds of social connection. Results are discussed in terms of the human need for social connection and the importance of groups.

From Protests, Parties, and Sports Games All Fill the Same Human Need (2017), an article in the CUT explains the benefits of a shared collective experience such as a concert and the research that supports the idea that these shared experiences are healthy for us.

The Covid-19 pandemic made it abundantly clear how much we need these shared experiences as Adam Grant explained in this 2021 op-ed for the NYT,

Most people view emotions as existing primarily or even exclusively in their heads. Happiness is considered a state of mind; melancholy is a potential warning sign of mental illness. But the reality is that emotions are inherently social: They’re woven through our interactions.  Research has found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others as when they’re alone. Even exchanging pleasantries with a stranger on a train is enough to spark joy....Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity.We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field.

 

This 2022 meta analysis from Frontiers in Psychology analyzes the connection between individual emotions and larger collective behaviors.

https://hii-mag.com/article/collective-effervescence

Collins 2004 Interactive Ritual Theory