Collective Effervescence as Self-Organization and Enaction

Summary

Collective effervescence is an intense group experience of shared emotion, involving feelings of being swept away and united with a crowd, often with a sense of awe. Research links it to psychological and physical benefits. This paper argues that the 4E (enactive, embodied, embedded, extended) cognitive framework, which treats cognition as inherently social and affective, can explain collective effervescence. The author contends that collective effervescence occurs when a crowd undergoes high degrees of self-organizing bodily activity under proper conditions. This approach demystifies the phenomenon and suggests applications in public policy and therapy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Collective effervescence is a group experience of intense collective affect. It includes feelings of being “swept away” and “becoming one with the crowd” and often a sensation of “awe” or being in touch with the sacred. Empirical research demonstrates that collective effervescence is connected to several short- and long-term psychological and physical benefits. The growing field of 4E cognition (enactive, embodied, embedded, and extended) takes cognition to be inherently social and affective. Yet surprisingly, despite the social, embodied, dynamic, and affective nature of collective effervescence, there is currently no 4E account of collective effervescence. I integrate the empirical literature on collective effervescence into 4E cognition. I argue, that whenever there are high degrees of self-organizing bodily activity in a human crowd under the proper boundary conditions, there is collective effervescence. Collective effervescence is the experience of undergoing high degrees of self-organization in a crowd. Taking a 4E dynamic systems approach to collective effervescence demystifies the phenomenon and opens it up for potential use in public policy and therapy.

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