Belief in collective emotions as conforming to the group

Abstract

In three studies (N = 632), participants' belief in collective emotions and related concepts were examined. Participants' belief in the existence of collective emotions positively correlated with measures of ingroup identification, collective guilt assignment to an outgroup, patriotism, conformity to the ingroup, collectivist values, and collective self‐esteem. The belief in collective emotions mediated the relationship between ingroup identification and patriotism, and it also mediated the relationship between ingroup identification and assignment of collective guilt to an outgroup. Conformity to the ingroup and deriving collective self‐esteem by seeing one's self as a good ingroup member mediated the relationship between ingroup identification and the belief in collective emotions. The latter results support the notion that expressing a belief in collective emotions is a means of expressing conformity to a valued ingroup.