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Cited by 33Social and Intergroup PsychologyAttachment and Relationship DynamicsAction Observation and Synchronization

Facing Sorrow as a Group Unites. Facing Sorrow in a Group Divides

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Rennung, Miriam, Göritz, Anja S.·2015·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0136750PMC PMC4559393
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Abstract

Collective gatherings foster group cohesion through providing occasion for emotional sharing among participants. However, prior studies have failed to disentangle two processes that are involved in emotional sharing: 1) focusing shared attention on the same emotion-eliciting event and 2) actively sharing one's experiences and disclosing one's feelings to others. To date, it has remained untested if shared attention influences group cohesion independent of active emotional sharing. Our experiment investigated the effect of shared versus individual attention on cohesion in groups of strangers. We predicted that differences in group cohesion as called forth by shared vs. individual attention are most pronounced when experiencing highly arousing negative affect, in that the act of experiencing intensely negative affect with others buffers negative affect's otherwise detrimental effect on group cohesion. Two-hundred sixteen participants were assembled in groups of 3 to 4 people to either watch an emotion-eliciting film simultaneously on a common screen or to watch the same emotion-eliciting film clip on a laptop in front of each group member using earphones. The film clips were chosen to elicit either highly arousing negative affect or one of three other affective states representing the other poles in Russel's Circumplex model of affect. We examined self-reported affective and cognitive group cohesion and a behavioral measure of group cohesion. Results support our buffer-hypothesis, in that experiencing intense negative affect in unison leads to higher levels of group cohesion than experiencing this affect individually despite the group setting. The present study demonstrates that shared attention to intense negative emotional stimuli affects group cohesion independently of active emotional sharing.

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  • Individuals who watched a film clip designed to induce negative mood alone felt less group cohesion than those watching a neutral film clip, but this effect was reversed when the group watched the clips together.

    “In the first, individuals who watched a film clip designed to induce negative mood alone felt less group cohesion than those watching a neutral film clip, but this effect was reversed when the group watched the clips together (Rennung & Göritz, 2015).”

    From The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework (2018) · cites this paper as Rennung & Göritz, 2015

    The Results (Main Analysis; page unavailable) report a mood-by-attention interaction and greater cohesion when participants watched the negative clip together rather than individually. But the comparator was a pooled set of three non-negative clips, not a neutral clip, and the reported results do not establish a reversal relative to that comparator when clips were watched together. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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  • Two sets of experiments demonstrate that enacting a group ritual can reduce a deficit in affiliation.

    “Two sets of experiments, in particular, demonstrate that enacting a group ritual can reduce a deficit in affiliation.”

    From The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework (2018) · cites this paper as Rennung & Göritz, 2015

    The Discussion (page not provided) reports that sharing attention to a distressing film clip buffered a reduction in closeness and liking toward other group members. That supports the affiliation-related outcome, but this paper describes one experiment involving shared film viewing, not two sets of experiments in which participants enacted a group ritual. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Authors
Rennung, M., & Göritz, A. S.
Affiliations
University of Freiburg (DE)
Corresponding author
Rennung, Miriam
ORCID
Göritz, Anja S.
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2015-09-03
Volume
10
Issue
9
Pages
e0136750
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0136750
PMC
PMC4559393
OpenAlex
W1767554577
Cited by
33
References
13
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2
FWCI
6.63
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • FreiDok plus (Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg) (submittedVersion)
  • OPUS (Augsburg University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GO 1107/13-1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
Keywords
group cohesion, joint attention, individual attention, emotional sharing, negative affect, emotional arousal, buffer hypothesis, collective emotions, strangers, circumplex model of affect
MeSH terms
Bereavement, Group Processes, Humans

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