Abstract
Two quasi-experimental and longitudinal studies examined positive effects of participation in positively valence collective religious and secular activities. Collective emotional gatherings strengthen social cohesion, enhance personal and collective self-esteem, positive affect, and positive shared beliefs among participants, through processes of emotional synchrony. Furthermore, perceived emotional synchrony is associated with experiencing qualitatively different self-transcendent and enjoyment emotions. In Study 1 we compared the effects of participating in Sunday Mass and other secular Sunday activities on enhancement of transcendence beliefs and collective self-esteem and tested the mediational role of perceived emotional synchrony and self-transcendent and enjoyment emotions. In Study 2 serial mediational analyses supported a model in which perceived emotional synchrony increases self-transcendent and enjoyment emotions, which subsequently foster enhancement of positive outcomes (controlling for the baseline) of participation in ritualized folkloric event. The results are discussed from the perspective of neo-Durkheimian model of ritual, emphasizing the role of perceived emotional synchrony over self-trascendent emotions, and from a socio-cultural approach to well-being.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Tamborrada (in Basque Donostiako Danborrada) is a drum festival which is held every year on January 20 in the city of San Sebastián, Spain.
References
Brewer, M. B. (1996). When contact is not enough: Social identity and intergroup cooperation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 20(3), 291–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(96)00020-X.
Bouchat, P., Rimé, B., Van Eycken, R., & Nils, F. (2020). The virtues of collective gatherings: A study on the positive effects of a major scouting event. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 50(3), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12649.
Chartrand, T. L., & Lakin, J. (2013). The antecedents and consequences of human behavioral mimicry. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 285–308. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143754Cheung.
Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 9(2), 233–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5.
Cloninger, C. R. (1994). Temperament and personality. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 4(2), 266–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-4388(94)90083-3.
Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cottraux, J. (2007). Thérapie cognitive et emotions: La troisième vague [cognitive therapyand emotions: The third wave]. Paris: Elsevier Masson.
Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc..
Di Giacomo, J. P. (1980). Intergroup alliances and rejections within a protest movement. European Journal of Social Psychology, 10(4), 329–344. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420100402.
Draper, S. (2014). Effervescence and solidarity in religious organizations. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 53(2), 229–248. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12109.
Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(4), 579–604. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466600164642.
Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2005). Explaining enduring empowerment: A comparative study of collective action and psychological outcomes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.231.
Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2009). Collective psychological empowerment as a model of social change: Researching crowds and power. Journal of Social Issues, 65(4), 707–725. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01622.x.
Efron, B., & Tibshirani, R. J. (1993). An introduction to the bootstrap. New York: Chapman & Hall.
Emmons, K. (2005). Emotion and religion. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 235–252). New York: The Guilford Press.
Fischer, R., Xygalatas, D., Mitkidis, P., Reddish, P., Tok, P., Konvalinka, I., & Bulbuli, J. (2014). The fire-Walker’s high: Affect and physiological responses in an extreme collective ritual. PLoS One, 9(2), e88355. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088355.
Fiske, A. P., Seibt, B., & Schubert, T. W. (2017). The sudden devotion emotion: Kama Muta and the cultural practices whose function is to evoke it. Emotion Review, 11(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073917723167.
Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity. New York: Crown Publishers.
Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 365–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.365.
Gasparre, A., Bosco, S., & Bellelli, G. (2010). Cognitive and social consequences of participations in social rites: Collective coping, social support and post-traumatic growth in Guatemala Genocide’s victims. Revista de Psicología Social, 25(1), 35–46. https://doi.org/10.1174/021347410790193513.
Gómez, A., Vázquez, A., Brooks, M. L., Buhrmester, M. D., Jetten, J., & Swan, W. B. (2011). On the nature of identity fusion: Insights into the construct and a new measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(5), 918–933. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022642.
Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis. New York: Basic Books.
Hawdon, J., & Ryan, J. (2011). Social relations that generate and sustain solidarity after a mass tragedy. Social Forces, 89(4), 1363–1384. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/89.4.1363.
Hayes, A. F., & Preacher, K. J. (2013). Statistical mediation analysis with a multicategorical independent variable. British Journal of Mathematical and statistical Psychology., 67(3), 451–470. https://doi.org/10.1111/bmsp.12028.
Hornsey, M. J., & Hogg, M. A. (2000). Subgroup relations: A comparison of mutual intergroup differentiation and common ingroup identity models of prejudice reduction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(2), 242–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167200264010.
Jackson, J. W., & Smith, E. R. (1999). Conceptualizing social identity: A new framework and evidence for the impact of different dimensions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(1), 120–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025001010.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1989). Assumptive worlds and the stress of traumatic events: Applications of the schema construct. Social Cognition, 7(2), 113–136. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1989.7.2.113.
Javaloy, F., Rodríguez, A., & Espelt, E. (2001). Comportamiento colectivo y movimientos sociales [collective behavior and social movements]. Madrid: Prentice Hall.
Jöreskog, K. G., & Sörbom, D. (1993). LISREL 8: Structural equation modeling with the SIMPLIS command language. Scientific Software International.
Kanyangara, P., Rimé, B., Philippot, P., & Yzerbyt, V. (2007). Collective rituals, emotional climate and intergroup perception: Participation in ‘Gacaca’ tribunals and assimilation of the Rwandan genocide. Journal of Social Issues, 63(2), 387–403. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00515.x.
Khan, S. S., Hopkins, N., Reicher, S., Tewari, S., Srinivasan, N., & Stevenson, C. (2015). How collective participation impacts social identity: A longitudinal study from India. Political Psychology, 37(3), 309–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12260.
Kobau, R., Sniezek, J., Zack, M. M., Lucas, R. E., & Burns, A. (2010). Wellbeing assessment: An evaluation of wellbeing scales for public health and population estimated of wellbeing among US adults. Applied Psychology: Health and Wellbeing, 2(3), 272–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2010.01035.x.
Krause, N., & Hayward, R. D. (2013). Emotional expressiveness during worship services and life satis-faction: Assessing the influence of race and religious affiliation. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 16, 813–831. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2012.721349.
Leach, C. W., van Zomeren, M., Zebel, S., Vliek, M. L., Pennekamp, S. F., Doosje, B., Ouwerkerk, J., & Spears, R. (2008). Group-level self-definition and self-investment: A hierarchical (multicomponent) model of in-group identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 144–165. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.144.
Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J. (1992). A collective self-esteem scale: Self-evaluation of one's social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(3), 302–318. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167292183006.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2010). Mplus (version 6)[computer software].Los Ángeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Neville, F., & Reicher, S. (2011). The experience of collective participation: Shared identity, relatedness, and emotionality. Contemporary Social Science, 6(3), 377–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2012.627277.
Páez, D., Basabe, N., Ubillos, S., & González, J. L. (2007). Social sharing, participations in demonstrations, emotional climate and coping with collective violence after march 11th Madrid bombings. Journal of Social Issues, 63(2), 323–337. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00511.x.
Páez, D., Javaloy, F., Wlodarczyk, A., Espelt, E., & Rimé, B. (2013). El Movimiento 15-M: Sus acciones Como rituales, compartir social, creencias, valores y emociones [the 15-M movement: Actions as rituals, social sharing, beliefs, values and emotions]. Revista de Psicología Social: International Journal of Social Psychology, 28(1), 19–35. https://doi.org/10.1174/021347413804756078.
Páez, D., Rimé, B., Basabe, N., Wlodarczyk, A., & Zumeta, L. (2015). Psychosocial effects of perceived emotional synchrony in collective gatherings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(5), 711–729. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000014.
Pandey, K., Stevenson, C., Shankar, S., Hopkins, N., & Reicher, S. (2014). Cold comfort at the Magh Mela: Social identity processes and physical hardship. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53(4), 675–690. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12054.
Pels, F., Kleinert, J., & Mennigen, F. (2018). Group flow: A scoping review of definitions, theoretical approaches, measures and findings. PLoS One, 13(12), e0210117. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210117.
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Rennung, M., & Göritz, A. S. (2016). Prosocial consequences of interpersonal synchrony: A meta-analysis. Zeitschrift Fur Psychologie, 224(3), 168–189. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000252.
Richard, F. D., Bond Jr., C. F., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described. Review of General Psychology, 7(4), 331–363. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.7.4.331.
Richer, S., & Vallerand, R. (1998). Construction et validation de l’Échelle du sentiment d’appartenance sociale. Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée, 48(2), 129–137.
Rimé, B., Páez, D., Basabe, N., & Martínez, F. (2010). Social sharing of emotion, post-traumatic growth, and emotional climate: Follow-up of Spanish citizen's response to the collective trauma of march 11th terrorist attacks in Madrid. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 1029–1045. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.700.
Rosanno, M. J. (2012). The essential role of ritual in the transmission and reinforcement of social norms. Psychological Bulletin, 138(3), 529–549. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027038.
Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (1984). Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ryff, C., & Keyes, C. (1995). The structure of psychological well-beingrevisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 719–727. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.719.
Schermelleh-Engel, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Müller, H. (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Test of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods of Psychological Research - Online, 8(2), 23–74.
Smith, H. J., & Tyler, T. R. (1997). Choosing the right pond: The impact of group membership on self-esteem and group-oriented behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33(2), 146–170. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1996.1318.
Steger, M. F., Frazier, P., Oishi, S., & Kaler, M. (2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53(1), 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80.
Steger, F. M., & Samman, E. (2012). Assessing meaning in life on an international scale. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 182–195. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v2.i3.2.
Swann, W. B., Jetten, J., Gomez, A., Whitehouse, H., & Bastian, B. (2012). When group membership gets personal: A theory of identity fusion. Psychological Review, 119(3), 441–456. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028589.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of inter-group conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of inter-group relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Tajfel, H. (2010). Social identity and intergroup relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tewari, S., Khan, S., Hopkins, N., Srinivasan, N., & Reicher, S. (2012). Participation in mass gatherings can benefit well-being: Longitudinal and control data from a north Indian Hindu pilgrimage event. PLoS One, 7(10), e47291. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047291.
Turner, J. C. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Cambridge, MA, US: Basil Blackwell.
Vaillant, G. E. (2009). Spiritual evolution: A scientific defense of faith. New York: Broadway Books.
Valdesolo, P., Ouyang, J., & DeSteno, D. (2010). The rhythm of joint action: Synchrony promotes cooperative ability. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(4), 693–695 10.1016 / j.jesp.2010.03.004.
Van Baaren, R. B., Holland, R. W., Kawakami, K., & van Knippenberg, A. (2004). Mimicry and prosocial behaviour. Psychological Science, 15(1), 71–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01501012.x.
Van Baaren, R. B., Holland, R. W., Steenaert, B., & van Knippenberg, A. (2003). Mimicry for money: Behavioral consequences of imitation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(4), 393–398. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00014-3.
Van Cappellen, P., & Rimé, B. (2014). Positive emotions and self-transcendence. In V. Saroglou (Ed.), Religion, personality, and social behavior. New York: Psychology Press.
Van Cappellen, P., Toth-Gauthier, M., Saroglou, V., & Fredrickson, B. (2014). Religion and well-being: The mediating role of positive emotions. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4(6), 447–460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9605-5.
Vázquez, C., & Hervás, G. (2012). Addressing current challenges in cross-cultural measurement of well-being: The Pemberton happiness index. In A. Delle Fave & H. H. Koop (Eds.), Anthology on cross cultural advancements in positive psychology (pp. 31–49). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Walker, C. (2010). Experiencing flow: Is doing it together better than doing it alone? Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760903271116.
Weiss, R. S., & Richards, T. A. (1997). A scale for predicting quality of recovery following the death of a partner. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(4), 885–891. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.4.885.
Whitehouse, H., & Lanman, J. A. (2014). The ties that bind us: Ritual, fusion, and identification. Current Anthropology, 55(6), 674–695. https://doi.org/10.1086/678698.
Wiltermuth, S. S., & Heat, C. (2009). Synchrony and cooperation. Psychological Science, 20(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02253.x.
Wlodarczyk, A., Zumeta, L., Pizarro, J. J., Bouchat, P., Hatibovic, F., Basabe, N., & Rimé, B. (2020). Perceived emotional synchrony in collective gatherings: Validation of a short scale and proposition of an integrative measure. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1721. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01721.
Zumeta, L. N., Castro-Abril, P., Méndez, L., Pizarro, J. J., Wlodarczyk, A., Basabe, N., Navarro-Carrillo, G., Padoan-De Luca, S., da Costa, S., Alonso-Arbiol, I., Torres-Gómez, B., Cakal, H., Delfino, G., Techio, E. M., Alzugaray, C., Bilbao, M., Villagrán, L., López-López, W., Ruiz-Pérez, J. I., Cedeño, C. C., Reyes-Valenzuela, C., Alfaro-Beracoechea, L., Contreras-Ibáñez, C., Ibarra, M. L., Reyes-Sosa, H., Cueto, R. M., Carvalho, C. L., & Pinto, I. R. (2020). Collective effervescence, self-transcendence, and gender differences in social well-being during 8 march demonstrations. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 607538. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.607538.
Zumeta, L., Basabe, N., Wlodarczyk, A., Bobowik, M., & Páez, D. (2016). Shared flow and positive collective gatherings. Anales de Psicología, 32(3), 717. https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.32.3.261651.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank to all participants in the study and to the City Hall of Donostia-San Sebastián.
Consent for Publication
All authors read and approved the final manuscript for its publication.
Data Accessibility
The datasets analyzed for this study will be available upon request.
Funding
This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness [under Grants PSI2014–51923-P / PSI2017–84145-P], the Basque Government [under Grant IT-1187-19], the University of the Basque Country [under Grant IT-666-13, Postdoctoral ESPDOC18/33] and FONDECYT Iniciación 11190980 granted to Anna Wlodarczyk.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Disclosure Statement
This is to acknowledge that absolutely no financial interest nor benefit has arisen from the direct applications of our research. The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Competing Interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wlodarczyk, A., Zumeta, L., Basabe, N. et al. Religious and secular collective gatherings, perceived emotional synchrony and self-transcendent emotions: two longitudinal studies. Curr Psychol 42, 4754–4771 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01826-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01826-0