Abstract
Research on collective emotions has been limited until recently to theories of irrational crowds, scepticism about genuinely group-level psychological phenomena and analyses of the unconscious or ritual sources of mass affective experience. However, collective emotion is now a thriving research area that combines studies from philosophy, anthropology, sociology, social psychology and neuroscience. This article examines neo-Durkheimian theories of collective emotions and relevant contributions of discursive psychologists and other social scientists influenced by the “turn to affect.” I argue that future theoretical and empirical investigations should do the following: (1) critically examine theories focusing on diffuse emotional energy and discrete collective emotions by also exploring the generation and production of genuinely collective mixed emotions; (2) clarify problems with “bottom-up” models of causal mechanisms through exploration of “affective practices” ; and (3) explore the implications of Tuomela’s (2013) “top-down” socialontology of “group agents” as a framework for theories and studies of collective emotion
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 383–393 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Social and Personality Psychology Compass |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 8 |
Early online date | 15 Jul 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Aug 2015 |
Bibliographical note
This article has been accepted for publication in Social and Personality Psychology Compass - full citation details will be updated once available.Keywords
- collective emotions