The emergence of collective emotions in social exchange

Abstract

Do collective emotions play a role in social exchange relations? Social exchange theories adopt instrumental, individualist assumptions about social relations. Relations form and are maintained to the degree that people derive individual benefit from them. Yet, because social exchange is also a quintessential joint activity or task that generates collective goods, it is reasonable to suspect that social exchange may generate collective emotions or feelings. This chapter theorizes how and when collective emotions emerge from social exchange and what role they have in creating cohesive relations and affective ties to groups. The theoretical argument is that collective emotions emerge in social exchange relations especially when people infer that each other have similar emotional responses to their shared experiences of exchange. This is most likely when: (1) the exchange task leads actors to perceive a shared responsibility for the results of the exchange and (2) actors make social unit attributions of individual emotions from doing the exchange task. Importantly, this process can operate in virtual interactions, that is, in the absence of bodily co-presence and emotional contagion.