In an interconnected world, emotions don’t just exist within individuals; they flow through groups and entire networks. In “What Makes Groups Emotional?,”1 Amit Goldenberg, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at HBS and Principal Investigator at D^3’s Digital Emotions Lab, summarizes literature to explore the components and dynamics of group emotions, the factors that amplify their intensity and duration, and how this information might be used to anticipate them and change them in positive ways.
Key Insight: Beyond Emotional Interactions—A Broader Framework
“Although emotional interactions are clearly a central driver of groups’ emotionality, I argue that to explain and predict group emotionality, we need to consider two additional types of processes and their interactions.” [1]
Goldenberg acknowledges that emotional interactions between individuals are important, but explains that they cannot completely explain group emotionality (or “collective emotion”). He proposes a broader interaction-cognition-infrastructure framework that defines interaction as any situation where one person’s emotions affect others’ emotions; it also incorporates how people perceive and evaluate others’ emotions (cognition) and the social or physical structures where they express emotions (infrastructure). He compares this to evaluating a forest fire based on a single tree, versus predicting the strength of the fire considering the other trees and conditions around it.
Key Insight: How Perception Amplifies Group Emotions
“[W]hen exposed to the emotions of others, people tend to perceive these emotions as stronger than they actually are and to further evaluate collective emotions as more emotional.” [2]
Group dynamics significantly amplify emotions. Goldenberg highlights how collective settings reduce the natural “gravitational force” of individual emotion relaxation, resulting in heightened and prolonged emotional intensity. Perception also plays a pivotal role in shaping group emotionality. According to Goldenberg, individuals often overestimate the intensity of collective emotions, and because people tend to identify with participants with stronger emotions, this further intensifies emotional states.
Key Insight: The Role of Social Networks in Emotional Spread
“The network infrastructure in which emotions are shared has an important impact on group emotionality.” [3]
Social networks—both physical and digital—act as conduits for emotional contagion, which encourages new members to become emotional and influences existing individuals’ levels of emotion. Goldenberg’s research shows that tightly connected networks can amplify emotions, as networks gather around more emotional members and repeated interactions strengthen emotional ties. However, networks can also modify emotions, making them weaker or changing their nature. He gives the example of Twitter interactions around the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, which showed a transition in emotions from sadness to anxiety as time passed.
Key Insight: Predicting and Regulating Group Emotions for Strategic Outcomes
“If we could predict the strength and duration of such emotions, we may be able to act differently to change these emotions when they are destructive or unhelpful.” [4]
Goldenberg proposes that his interaction-cognition-infrastructure framework can be used to both predict and regulate collective emotion to drive more positive outcomes. To predict collective emotion, Goldenberg suggests evaluating data, specifically from social media, to look for components of his framework, for example, by examining the number of shares and network infrastructure to assess the strength, spread, and duration of collective emotions. Being able to predict group emotionality can help to change it, through regulation, when it may be harmful.
Regulating group emotionality can be accomplished through a top-down process—by a leader who wants to influence an emotional response—or through a bottom-up process where a group of people cooperates to increase or decrease emotionality by interacting with each other and other group members. Goldenberg gives the example of investment forums, where group members provide different analyses of adverse company news to moderate investors’ reactions and potential sales of stock.
Why This Matters
Understanding collective emotion and how interaction, cognition, and infrastructure affect it, are important concepts in both addressing conflicts among people and groups confronting challenges, and encouraging positive actions. This insight can help business leaders navigate team dynamics, customer interactions, and public relations. By recognizing how emotions spread and amplify within groups, executives can better predict employee morale, customer responses, and brand perception. This insight can allow leaders to foster positive collective emotions or mitigate harmful ones, ensuring smoother operations and stronger stakeholder relationships.
Footnote
1. NB: the HBS link leads to an article-in-press version of the review, which was published, as noted in our reference notes, in Perspectives on Psychological Science in March 2024.
References
[1] Amit Goldenberg, “What Makes Groups Emotional”, Perspectives on Psychological Science 19, no. 2 (March 2024): 489–502. 2.
[2] Goldenberg, “What Makes Groups Emotional”, 6.
[3] Goldenberg, “What Makes Groups Emotional”, 2.
[4] Goldenberg, “What Makes Groups Emotional”, 1.
Meet the Author
Amit Goldenberg is an assistant professor in the Negotiation Organization & Markets unit, an affiliate with Harvard’s Department of Psychology, and Principal Investigator at D^3’s Digital Emotions Lab. Professor Goldenberg’s research focuses on what makes people emotional in social and group contexts, and how such emotions can be changed when they are unhelpful or undesired. He is particularly interested in how technology is used for both emotion detection and regulation.