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Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically Documented, at Émile Durkheim's

Theory of Collective Assemblies and Collective Effervescence

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Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically 1­–25

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DOI: 10.1177/17456916221146388
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Effervescence

Bernard Rimé1 and Dario Páez2,3

1
Institut de Recherches en Sciences Psychologiques, Université catholique de Louvain; 2Department of
Social Psychology, University of the Basque Country; and 3Faculty of Education and Social Sciences,
Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile

Abstract
For Durkheim, individuals’ survival and well-being rest on cultural resources and social belonging that must be
revived periodically in collective assemblies. Durkheim’s concern was to clarify how these assemblies achieve this
revitalization. An intensive examination of primitive religions led him to identify successive levels of engagement
experienced by participants and to develop explanatory principles relevant to all types of collective gatherings.
Durkheim’s conception is widely referred to nowadays. However, the question of its empirical status remains open.
We extracted from his text his main statements and translated them into research questions. We then examined each
question in relation to current theories and findings. In particular, we relied on the plethora of recent cognitive and
social-psychology studies that document conditions of reduced self-other differentiation. Abundant data support that
each successive moment of collective assemblies contributes to blurring this differentiation. Ample support also exists
that because shared emotions are increasingly amplified in collective context, they can fuel high-intensity experiences.
Moreover, recent studies of self-transcendent emotions can account for the self-transformative effects described by
Durkheim at the climax of collective assemblies. In conclusion, this century-old model is remarkably supported by
recent results, mostly collected in experimental settings.

Keywords
collective gatherings, crowd, collective effervescence, rituals, synchrony, collective emotions

A century ago, in The Elementary Forms of Religious during which their members may revivify their
Life, Emile Durkheim (1912/1915) stated that to ensure common faith by manifesting it in common. To
their survival and well-being, individuals must periodi- strengthen those sentiments which, if left to them-
cally come together in collective assemblies. Durkheim selves, would soon weaken, it is sufficient to bring
also pointed that the capacity of individuals to deal those who hold them together and to put them
with existence rests on collective representations accu- into closer and more active relations with one
mulated over generations. When they partake in the another. (Durkheim, 1912/1915, p. 210)
societal ensemble and share these representations, indi-
viduals face the world with confidence and vital energy. From these premises, Durkheim (1912/1915) devel-
But given that daily life is spent in relative isolation, oped a theory of how periodic assemblies revive com-
people’s collective resources erode progressively. They mon faith. In short, individuals gather in the presence
need to revitalize their faith by manifesting it anew in of symbols representing their group. They focus on
communion with others because it is the sharing of the
common faith that makes this faith a reality:
Corresponding Author:
Bernard Rimé, Institut de Recherches en Sciences Psychologiques,
This is why all parties, political, economic or con- Université catholique de Louvain
fessional, are careful to have periodical reunions Email: bernard.rime@uclouvain.be
2 Rimé and Páez
common objects, emblems, and themes. They act in
unison, synchronizing their gestures, actions, and
expressions. Their coordinated manifestations generate
an atmosphere of emotion and fervor. Their mutual
stimulation yields a climate of emotional fusion. It cul-
minates in a state of “effervescence,” in which partici-
pants experience the “we” in place of the “self.” Their
feeling of group belonging and their faith in collective
representations being revitalized, participants can
return to their individual occupations and face daily
life with a sense of power and meaning.
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) idea that the survival and
well-being of individuals rest on their social integration
remained devoid of influence on research for most of
the 20th century. In this period, psychological science
predominantly viewed the healthy individual as “self-
contained, independent and self-reliant, capable of
asserting himself and influencing his environment”
(Riger, 1993, p. 280). The contribution of collective
processes to health was simply ignored. More recently,
however, the discipline has undergone a considerable
evolution in this regard. There was a growing aware-
ness that collective processes are not inherently irra-
tional and destructive (e.g., Ehrenreich, 2007; McNeil,
1995; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). At the same time,
evidence has begun to emerge that social isolation
poses a threat to health and to survival. In a landmark
article titled “From Social Integration to Health:
Durkheim in the New Millennium,” Berkman et al.
(2000) highlighted that since the 1970s, studies have
consistently shown lack of social ties to predict mortal-
ity from almost every cause. Subsequently, empirical
support for these observations has grown steadily.
Meta-analytic data from 70 studies revealed an average
increased likelihood of mortality of 29% for social isola-
tion, 26% for loneliness, and 32% for living alone
(Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015). At the opposite end of the
spectrum, meta-analyses of studies conducted on the
general population (Schwarzer & Leppin, 1989, 1991),
on the elderly (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000), and on
children and adolescents (Chu et al., 2010) evidenced
effect sizes of r = .20, r = .15, and r = .17, respectively,
between social support and well-being. A meta-analytic
review of 148 studies recorded a 50% increased likeli-
hood of survival for participants with stronger social
relationships (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010).
Taken together, the strong links observed between
lack of social connections and mortality and the abun-
dant evidence that social integration improves health
and well-being provide powerful support for Durkheim’s
(1912/1915) theory that survival, well-being, and social
integration are tightly interrelated. Given the theory’s
support, there is then a concern to clarify how social
relationships affect health and well-being (e.g., Jetten
et al., 2012). Ignored by empirical research during the
20th century, collective processes and collective emo-
tions have been receiving considerable attention (e.g.,
Barsade & Gibson, 2012; Chung et al., 2022; Elfenbein,
2014; Goldenberg et al., 2021; Krueger & Szanto, 2016;
Parkinson, 2011, 2020, 2021; Peters & Kashima, 2015;
Salmela, 2012; Thonhauser, 2022; von Scheve & Ismer,
2013; von Scheve & Salmela, 2014). “Effervescence,” the
concept adopted by Durkheim to capture the core of
collective gatherings, raises an unprecedented interest
(see Fig. 1).
After a century of neglect, researchers have realized
that Durkheim was a visionary and that his analysis of
collective processes holds great promise. However, his
views need to be extracted from the realm of hypoth-
eses and brought into empirical verification. The French
sociologist did not offer a linear exposition of a theory,
and dealing with The Elementary Forms (Durkheim
1912/1915) is not easy. Essential ideas emerge scattered
throughout lengthy descriptions of anthropological
observations. Consequently, abundant references are
currently made to Durkheim’s views from secondhand
or thirdhand sources. The purpose of this article is to
return to what Durkheim actually proposed and to
relate it to the empirical evidence available currently. 1
More specifically, we (a) extract from his text the essen-
tial components of his conception of collective pro-
cesses and (b) translate these components into research
questions that we then examine alongside contempo-
rary theories and findings. In doing so, we aim to pro-
vide an updated and empirically supported view of
Durkheim’s proposals. Beforehand, we need to specify
Durkheim’s framework.
Durkheim’s Framework
Durkheim (1912/1915) sought to clarify the periodic
revival of collective beliefs and representations as
exemplified in religious faiths. To this end, he sought
to examine the most primitive and simplest religion that
could be accessed. He found such sources in the
totemic religions of clan-based societies as described
by anthropologists among Australian aborigines and
so-called “North American Indians.” Resting on such
observations, Durkheim developed a theory of the pro-
cess unfolding in collective assemblies. Note that his
analysis was in no way directed at crowds. Whereas
“crowd” refers to accidental gathering of individuals
(e.g., in a public square at a busy hour), the collective
processes addressed by Durkheim involve intentional-
ity, or a purpose shared between the copresent persons.
He spoke of rassemblement (gathering) or of assemblée
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X) 3

0.00035

0.0003 1580
1750

Relative Google Scholar Hits 0.00025

0.0002 1550
1310 1340
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816 825
0.0001 657
399 426 573
239 259
0.00005 144 143

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19 995

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94

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92

06

18
00

02

08

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20
04
19

Fig. 1. Evolution of Scientific Interest for Durkheim’s Effervescence.

Note: Evolution over time of Google Scholar hits for the search of publications mentioning both
terms, “Durkheim” and “effervescence.” The y-axis displays the percentage of hits relative to the total
number of entries (all types, excluding patents and citations) in Google Scholar (June 14, 2022) for the
respective period. The absolute number of hits is displayed above each bar.

(assembly). In the English translation of his book, the
word “crowd” occurs only six times, whereas the root
“assembl-” (for “assembly” or “assembled”) is met 61
times.
Although Durkheim (1912/1915) continually referred
to religious ceremonies of remote societies, his concern
was to reach the essence of collective assemblies and
to formulate principles of universal relevance:
There can be no society which does not feel the
need of upholding and reaffirming at regular
intervals the collective sentiments and the collec-
tive ideas which make its unity and its personality.
Now this moral remaking cannot be achieved
except by the means of reunions, assemblies and
meetings where the individuals, being closely
united to one another, reaffirm in common their
common sentiments; hence come ceremonies
which do not differ from regular religious ceremo-
nies, either in their object, the results which they
produce, or the processes employed to attain
these results. (p. 427)
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) project was to shed light on
the entire spectrum of collective manifestations. He
recurrently extended his reflections to sociopolitical
assemblies, to revolutionary movements, or to festive
gatherings:
Every feast, even when it has purely lay origins, has
certain characteristics of the religious ceremony, for
in every case its effect is to bring men together, to
put the masses into movement and thus to excite a
state of effervescence. (pp. 382–383)
Authors who have addressed his work all agree that
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) analysis extends to all forms
of collective gathering (e.g., Collins, 2004; Moscovici,
1993; Pickering, 1984). This analysis therefore has rel-
evance to the many forms of collective assembly
encountered today, whether in sports, music, culture,
folklore, feasts, religious ceremonies, political gather-
ings, social events, or others.
Our task will now consist in extracting from Durkheim’s
(1912/1915) book the essential components of his con-
ception of collective assemblies. Participants in such
events were described as evolving through successive
levels of engagement of rising intensity: (a) common
state of mind, (b) homogeneous manifestations, (c) group
consciousness, and (d) emotional transmission and
reciprocal emotional amplification. They then reach (e)
a high-intensity state called “effervescence.” We examine
each of these moments successively. For each, we con-
sider how far Durkheim’s propositions are supported
by current theory and research. At the end of this review,
we draw up a picture of how collective assemblies
appear today given current empirical data.
4 Rimé and Páez
Moment 1: Copresence and Interactions
Durkheim’s theory
As soon as the participants come together, they undergo
a transformation. The contents of their consciousnesses
change. The utilitarian and individual preoccupations
that dominate consciousness in daily life are eclipsed
and substituted by collective concerns, shared beliefs,
traditions, and collective ideals:
So, their first effect (ceremonies) is to bring indi-
viduals together, to multiply the relations between
them and to make them more intimate with one
another. By this very fact, the contents of their
consciousness is changed. . . . At this time, their
thoughts are centred upon their common beliefs,
their common traditions, the memory of their
great ancestors, the collective ideal of which they
are the incarnation, in a word, upon social things.
(Durkheim, 1912/1915, pp. 348–349)
Participants’ evolution toward a collective mindset
is channeled by displayed emblems (e.g., flags, ban-
ners, signs, slogans, specific clothing): “That an emblem
is useful as a rallying-centre for any sort of a group it
is superfluous to point out. By expressing the social
unity in a material form, it makes this more obvious to
all” (Durkheim, 1912/1915, p. 230)
The question arising here is thus whether empirical
support exists for Durkheim’s (1912/1915) description of
the initial phase of collective assemblies. It involves the
following sequence: copresence, interactions, modifica-
tion of the contents of consciousness toward common
contents, and emergence of a common state of mind.
Current theory and research
Durkheim (1912/1915) pointed out a number of factors
that contribute to the evolution of the simple copres-
ence to a shared state of mind among participants. They
involve the interactions attendees develop, the focus of
their consciousness on shared contents, and the indices
of the deployed emblems conveying what connects
them. In a theory of ritual interactions drawing on
Durkheim, Randall Collins (2004) stressed that a shared
reality becomes effective in an assembly as soon as
coparticipants’ copresence is converted into focused
interactions:
Society is above all an embodied activity. When
human bodies are together in the same place,
there is a physical attunement: currents of feel-
ings, a sense of wariness or interest, a palpable
change in atmosphere. The bodies are paying
attention to each other. . . . This bodily inter-
orientation is the starting point for what happens
next. (Collins, 2004, p. 34)
Collins (2004) thus emphasized the role of the mutual
attention of the copresent participants and the physical
attunement that it involves. In this way, coparticipants
mutually intensify their shared experience, and a state
of heightened intersubjectivity develops in the assembly.
On their part, social psychologists working within the
framework of social-identity theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner,
1979) and its development through self-categorization
theory ( J. C. Turner et al., 1987) have established a
research tradition grounded in the key role of social
identity in collective processes. They pointed out that
exposure to other members of a group allows people
infer the identity they share. Drury and Reicher (2005,
2009) posited that when people take part in a group
with whom they share features, purposes, or fate, they
engage in self-categorization. A cognitive transforma-
tion from individual-level identity to group-level iden-
tification thus takes place. Participants redefine their
identity and categorize themselves with the other par-
ticipants in terms of context-relevant features (e.g., “We
are all drummers” or “We are all antiracist demonstra-
tors”). This transformation affects dimensions such as
identity content (“who we are”), identity boundaries
(who counts as “one of us”), and definitions of legiti-
mate behavior (Drury & Reicher, 2000). Once actively
identified with a group, participants then act in function
of this group’s norms. Shared identification also leads
to effective coordination of action, to expectations of
mutual goals, and hence to mutual support in reaching
these goals. Altogether, these largely documented
effects (for reviews see, Drury, 2018, 2020) revealed the
contribution of self-categorization to the emergence of
a shared mindset among copresent participants. These
studies thus provide a strong conceptual and empirical
basis for Durkheim’s (1912/1915) observation that as
soon as individuals come together, their copresence
evolves toward a common state of mind.
Moment 2: Homogeneous Manifestations
Durkheim’s theory
Durkheim (1912/1915) noted that once they are assem-
bled, participants develop homogeneous behavioral mani-
festations: “Homogeneous manifestations then develop in
the assembly. By emitting same cries, words and gestures,
participants nourish the group feeling” (p. 212):
And since a collective sentiment cannot express
itself collectively except on the condition of
observing a certain order permitting co-operation
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
and movements in unison, these gestures and
cries naturally tend to become rhythmic and regu-
lar; hence come songs and dances. (p. 216)
Durkheim (1912/1915) viewed these visible and
homogeneous manifestations as the necessary condi-
tion for the emergence of a collective feeling in the
assembly. In absence of visible displaying, the partici-
pants’ transformation noted at the initial stage of the
assembly would remain private and thus inconsequen-
tial to the collective process:
If left to themselves, individual consciousnesses
are closed to each other; they can communicate
only by means of signs which express their inter-
nal states. If the communication established
between them is to become a real communion,
that is to say, a fusion of all particular sentiments
into one common sentiment, the signs expressing
them must themselves be fused into one single
and unique resultant. It is the appearance of this
that informs individuals that they are in harmony
and makes them conscious of their moral unity. It
is by uttering the same cry, pronouncing the same
word, or performing the same gesture in regard
to some object that they become and feel them-
selves to be in unison. . . . Individual minds can-
not come in contact and communicate with each
other except by coming out of themselves but they
cannot do this except by movements. So it is the
homogeneity of these movements that gives the
group consciousness of itself and consequently
makes it exist. (pp. 230–231)
In this way, assembly participants inform one another
that they share the same internal states, and according
to Durkheim (1912/1915), the feelings of each one
would merge into a common feeling and thus into a
“communion.”
Current theory and research
According to Durkheim (1912/1915), the evolution of
participants toward a “common feeling” or “commu-
nion” would result from their perception of visible
manifestations, of homogeneous movements, and of
shared internal states. Nowadays, there are three
sources of empirical documentation in this regard.
These include the psychosocial effects resulting (a)
from the perception of a shared identity, (b) from
homogeneous behavioral manifestations, and (c) from
the perception of shared feelings.
Psychosocial effects of the perception of a shared
identity. According to SIT, the cognitive transformation
5
that led participants to self-categorize and adopt a salient
social identity opens on an additional and conceptually
distinct step. In the latter, participants perceive copresent
people as sharing this social identity (Neville & Reicher,
2011). It is specified that knowledge of one’s shared iden-
tity with others results from the interpretation of various
information sources such as “embodied emotion (e.g.,
facial expressions), ingroup symbols (e.g., wearing team
colors), shared action (e.g., chanting), and shared fate
(e.g., vulnerability to rent increases)” (Neville & Reicher,
2011, p. 387). The perception of a shared social identity
entails a marked relational transformation in the level of
intimacy with coparticipants. Shared in-group membership
was indeed shown to facilitate intragroup trust and coop-
eration, a decrease in stress, comfort in close physical
proximity, and helping behaviors (Haslam & Reicher, 2006;
Novelli et al., 2010; Reicher & Haslam, 2006). Accordingly,
self-categorization (“I am a member of this group”) and
shared identity (“We are members of this group”) should
be treated as conceptually distinct. If one identifies with a
social category but does not perceive copresent others to
share this membership, then one’s relations with these
others are unlikely to be transformed toward intimacy
(Neville & Reicher, 2011). The relational transformation
resulting from the perception of a shared social identity is
supported by empirical evidence from a variety of collec-
tive assemblies (e.g., Alnabulsi & Drury, 2014; Khan et al.,
2015; Neville et al., 2022; Novelli et al., 2013).
Psychosocial outcomes of homogeneous manifesta-
tions. An important scientific interest has emerged for the
study of interpersonal coordination, that is, behaviors in
social interactions that are either similar in form or occur
at the same time (Bernieri & Rosenthal, 1991; Chartrand &
Lakin, 2013). Two forms of interpersonal coordination are
investigated: behavioral mimicry and interpersonal syn-
chronization. We briefly review their effects for cognitive
and affective variables related to social behavior and for
social variables.
In behavioral mimicry, one person unintentionally
and effortlessly copies another person’s posture or body
movements without either one being aware (Chartrand
& Lakin, 2013; Chartrand & van Baaren, 2009). Chartrand
and Bargh (1999) found imitation to promote ease of
social interaction and mutual attraction between part-
ners. Compared with participants who had not been
imitated, partners who had been imitated were also
found to be quicker to help and more generous to oth-
ers (e.g., van Baaren et al., 2003, 2004). Being mimicked
increased the willingness to cooperate (Maddux et al.,
2008) and to comply with persuasion attempts (Tanner
et al., 2008). From a narrative review, Chartrand and
Lakin (2013) concluded that mimicry elicits liking and
empathy, helping behavior, interdependence, and
feelings of closeness between the interactants. From a
6 Rimé and Páez
meta-analytic review, Hale and Hamilton (2016) con-
cluded that mimicry changes participants’ self-construal
in a more interdependent direction. Among others, mim-
icked participants provided more interdependent state-
ments, felt closer to others, and increased their prosocial
behavior. In a nutshell, it can thus be concluded that
being mimicked enhances openness to others.
In interpersonal synchrony, the actions of two or
more people overlap in time (Bernieri et al., 1988;
Rennung & Göritz, 2016), whether with same actions
(e.g., a marching band walking in stride) or different
ones (e.g., players in an orchestra; Hove & Risen, 2009).
Early studies have shown that movements exercised in
synchrony increased affiliation for the coparticipant
(Hove & Risen, 2009); enhanced cooperative behaviors,
feelings of trust, feelings of similarity, and shared
belonging (Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009); and fostered
compassion and altruistic behavior (Valdesolo &
DeSteno, 2011). In a meta-analytic review, Rennung and
Göritz (2016) examined 60 experiments that compared
an interpersonal synchrony condition (motor movements
or sensory stimulation) with at least one control condi-
tion. It yielded significant effects on prosocial attitudes
(r = .24) and prosocial behaviors (r = .22). Mogan et al.
(2017) conducted a meta-analytic review of 42 studies in
which experimentally manipulated synchronous actions
(i.e., exact rhythmic matching of actions in time and in
phase) were compared with control conditions. Syn-
chrony yielded positive effects on prosocial behaviors
(r = .24), perceived social bonding (r = .17), and positive
affect (r = .11). Note that positive affect, in turn, enhances
altruism, prosocial behavior, and cooperation (Eisenberg,
1991; Fredrickson, 2013). Tarr et al. (2018) used an
immersive virtual reality environment to test the role of
synchrony in bonding effects when controlling for con-
founds of suggestion, competence, and shared intention.
Participants in the synchrony condition reported greater
social closeness on two behavioral measures and greater
prosociality on self-reported measures.
Considerable similarities thus exist between the psy-
chosocial effects of being behaviorally mimicked by an
interaction partner and those of being in synchrony with
one (e.g., Chartrand & Lakin, 2013; Hale & Hamilton,
2016). Vicaria and Dickens (2016) conducted joined
meta-analytic assessments of interpersonal and intrap-
ersonal outcomes of 19 interactional-synchrony studies
and 30 behavioral-mimicry investigations. These two
modes of interpersonal coordination were consistently
found to increase harmonious feelings among interact-
ing partners and to promote prosocial behaviors.
Psychosocial outcomes of shared experiences. Many
recent experimental studies conducted outside the field
of collective processes have examined the psychosocial
effects of sharing a same experience. They have all evi-
denced remarkably similar outcomes. People who are
aware of sharing beliefs with others increase their identi-
fication, mutual appreciation, cohesion, and perceived
homogeneity with those others (Bar-Tal, 2000). Likewise,
the realization that attention is shared increases affiliation,
cooperation, and social cohesion between coattending
persons (Shteynberg, 2015, 2018; Shteynberg et al., 2020).
People who believe that they are having the same in-the-
moment experience as another person (“I-sharing”) man-
ifest enhanced felt closeness, liking, generosity, and
cooperation regarding this person (Pinel, 2018). Among
previously unrelated persons, eating shared food from a
single plate leads them to behave more cooperatively
and less competitively toward each other compared with
eating the same food from separate plates (Woolley &
Fishbach, 2017, 2019). Sharing a same emotional-stimulus
condition suffices to enhance feelings of closeness and
integration between coparticipants (Rennung & Göritz,
2015). These various situations of shared experience find
a niche under the broader label of “shared reality,” or the
perceived commonality of inner states (feelings, beliefs,
or concerns) with another person about a target referent
(event, object, or third person; Echterhoff et al., 2009;
Hardin & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 2019). Recently, shared
reality was extended to the study of generalized shared
reality (SR-G), or the subjective experience of shared
reality about multiple topics and domains with a particu-
lar interaction partner (Rossignac-Milon et al., 2021;
Rossignac-Milon & Higgins, 2018). Across studies, SR-G
predicted “clicking” between strangers as well as close-
ness, rapport, and the desire to interact again. On days
when partners experienced greater SR-G, they felt more
connected to their partners. People with greater SR-G
also tended to be closer and more committed to their
romantic partners and more likely to have experienced
the feeling of having “merged minds.”
Conclusion
The three research areas we have examined support
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) observations that common
feelings develop in collective assemblies as a result of
the perception of visible manifestations, of homoge-
neous movements, and of shared internal states. Thus,
SIT studies have established that the perception of a
shared social identity entails a marked transformation
in the level of intimacy with coparticipants. The abun-
dant research conducted on behavioral mimicry and
interpersonal synchronization has demonstrated that
the practice of homogeneous movements can indeed
modify the participants’ social rapport by bringing them
closer together. Dependent variables for which sig-
nificant effects in this direction have been observed
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
abound. They can be grouped into three main catego-
ries: (a) enhanced attraction for partners (e.g., liking,
positive affect, affiliation, empathy, compassion), (b)
strengthened social ties (e.g., closeness, integration,
interdependence, cohesion, rapport, connection, com-
mitment, cooperation, desire to interact), and (c)
enhanced prosociality and/or altruism. Thus, in various
ways, participants in conditions involving mimicry or
synchronization are evidenced to temporarily develop
a social openness. The same conclusion results from the
study of situations in which participants perceive that
they share a same experience. Given similar dependent
variables, such situations also yielded a higher closeness
and integration among participants. There is thus no
longer any doubt that homogeneous movements and
the community of experience have the effect of bridging
the gap between participants. However, Durkheim’s
propositions went one step further. They evoked effects
such as “a fusion of particular sentiments into one com-
mon sentiment,” becoming “conscious of their moral
unity,” or accessing to “the group consciousness of
itself.” Such effects go beyond mere bonding and imply
an awareness of group unity. Some of the findings in
our review support such outcomes. Thus, in the section
on synchrony, significant effects are mentioned for “feel-
ings of similarity” and “shared belonging” (Wiltermuth
& Heath, 2009) and for “perceived social bonding”
(meta-analytic review of Mogan et al., 2017), three vari-
ables that come close to awareness of group unity. Like-
wise, in the section on shared experiences, people with
greater SR-G were reported as more likely to have expe-
rienced “the feeling of having merged minds.” Such
results are in minority, but this may be because research-
ers did not consider theoretical reasons for carrying out
measurements of this type. Future research should be
attentive to these distinctions.
Moment 3: Group Consciousness
Durkheim’s theory
According to Durkheim (1912/1915), participants’ homo-
geneous movements and community of experience con-
tribute to generate “the fusion of all the particular
feelings into one common sentiment” (p. 230), which,
in his view, equates to “group consciousness.” To prop-
erly understand this view, we must go back to its source.
In his book On the Division of Labor in Society, inspired
by Ferdinand Tönnies (1887), Durkheim (1893/1933)
described two forms of social organization that suc-
ceeded in history. In the primitive one, the division of
labor was rudimentary. People were similar, and indi-
viduality was null. They moved together without move-
ment of their own. Subsequently, societies evolved
toward greater divisions of labor, and individuals became
7
more differentiated, each having a proper sphere of
action. However, wrote Durkheim, in this evolved soci-
ety, many social events bring individuals together and
make them again “commune”: festivals, public ceremo-
nies, religious or secular, dramatic performances, and
artistic events. “This is a world not only more intense
but also qualitatively different. Following the collectivity,
the individual forgets himself for the common end and
his conduct is orientated in terms of a standard outside
himself.” (Durkheim, 1911/1953, p. 48).
What Durkheim meant by group consciousness thus
corresponds to conditions under which those elements
differentiating individuals from one another are blurred:
There are in each of us . . . two consciences: one
which is common to our group in its entirety which,
consequently, is not our self, but society living and
acting within us; the other, on the contrary, repre-
sents that in us which is personal and distinct, that
which makes us an individual. Solidarity which
comes from likeness is at its maximum when the
collective conscience completely envelops our
whole conscience and coincides in all points with
it. But at that moment, our individuality is nil.
(Durkheim, 1893/1933, pp. 129–130)
In sum, what Durkheim (1893/1933) described is a
temporary evolution of individuals toward a moment
when they cease to act as beings differentiated from
one another, abandon their personal goals and con-
cerns, and begin to act according to common goals and
norms. Under these conditions, each individual can
perceive only his or her similarity to others, which
favors the emergence of a sense of “we-ness” in all.
Current theory and research
The conditions viewed by Durkheim (1912/1915) as the
substratum of “group consciousness” are far from being
alien in contemporary social sciences. Anthropologists,
sociologists, and social psychologists currently examine
conditions under which differences between individuals
may be blurred. We briefly review some of the promi-
nent concepts in this area.
The idea put forward by Tönnies (1887) and by
Durkheim (1893/1933) of an ancient form of social orga-
nization consisting of an undifferentiated community of
equal individuals is echoed in the notion of “communi-
tas” developed in the anthropological work of V. W.
Turner (1969, 1974). In communitas, individuals are
detached from their differences of class, status, and
social roles, and they meet as integral human beings
who share the same humanity. The spirit of communitas
is periodically revived in pilgrimages, initiation rituals,
religious events, or countercultural movements, in which
8 Rimé and Páez
homogeneity and equality are temporarily restored.
“Communal sharing” (CS), described by Alan Fiske
(1992), is very close to communitas. In CS, individuals
focus on what they have in common—nature, ancestry,
origins, or substance—and disregard their distinct indi-
vidual identities. CS develops in close kinship, in intense
love, and to a lesser degree, in ethnic and national identi-
ties. CS can be activated in collective events, such as
initiation, rites of passage, religious worship, and cere-
monial meals. The sudden realization that one is expe-
riencing CS can trigger a strong emotion labeled kama
muta—a Sanskrit concept meaning “being moved.” It is
accompanied by positive affect, tears and chills, and
action tendencies, such as approach behavior, affiliation,
prosocial behavior, and social bonding (Zickfeld,
Schubert, Seibt, Blomster, et al., 2019; Zickfeld, Schubert,
Seibt, & Fiske, 2019). Communitas and CS share elements
with the notion of “social identity,” which has been
extensively documented in social psychology. It refers
to the individual’s awareness of belonging to the same
social category as a set of other people (e.g., Drury, 2018;
Neville et al., 2022; Reicher et al., 2010). From this moment,
because they see others as fellow group members, they
feel intimate with them. Because they assume others see
them as a fellow group member, they assume they will be
intimate with them. This prompts a multilevel sense of
we-ness that leads people to mutual support and to act
together as a group (Neville et al., 2022).
Researchers thus have shown that certain types of
social relationships can bring out the feeling of nondif-
ferentiation and thus of union between individuals. The
notion of “perceived emotional synchrony” (PES) devel-
oped by Páez et al. (2015) is in the same vein. Here,
close to Durkheim (1912/1915), the experience of col-
lective assembly is viewed as eliciting feelings of we-
ness or unity. PES denotes such a feeling involving a
sense of togetherness or unison. Items assessing PES
strongly predicted effects expected to result from a
collective experience, including social integration,
empowerment, positive emotions, and endorsement of
socially shared beliefs and values (e.g., Bouchat et al.,
2020; Páez et al., 2015). A meta-analysis (Pizarro et al.,
2022) found PES to predict longitudinally these out-
comes (for social integration, r = .31; for empowerment,
r = 42; for positive emotions, r = .53; for endorsement
of socially shared beliefs and values: r = 27).
Other phenomena involving experiences of oneness
with peers have been described and documented by
social psychologists. Thus, “inclusion of others in the
self” (IOS; Aron & Aron, 1986; Aron et al., 2013) occurs
in conditions such as falling in love (Aron & Aron,
2006), emotional intimacy (e.g., Brown et al., 2009),
physical intimacy (Sagarin et al., 2009), and believing
that one “shares brain waves” with the other (Goldstein
& Cialdini, 2007). IOS consists of adopting and sharing
the perspectives and identities of another person in
such a way that the cognitive construction of the self
overlaps the cognitive construction of the other. The
needs of the other person become perceived as needs
of the self, and meeting these needs becomes norma-
tive. Swann et al. (2009, 2012) described “identity
fusion” (IF), which is typical of close relationships but
can also occur with larger groups, such as a country or
political party. IF results from the fusion of the personal
self and the social self, that is to say, of the individual’s
own characteristics—or personal self—and the charac-
teristics the individual shares with the group—or social
self. The self-other barrier is then blurred, and a visceral
sense of oneness with the group ensues, with, in par-
ticular, a readiness to sacrifice oneself for the group.
Thus, IOS and IF both accent a process of cognitive
overlapping as the source of the feeling of nondiffer-
entiation or union with others.
Yaden et al. (2017) highlighted that experiences
called “self-transcendent” (ST) can momentarily blur
the subjective sense of one’s self and trigger the experi-
ence of unity with other people or one’s surrounding.
This is observed, in particular, in mindfulness experi-
ences, in flow, in peak experiences, and in mystical-
type experiences. As for the underlying process, the
authors suggested the interaction of an annihilation
component that could reduce negative aspects of exces-
sive self-focus and a relational component, linked to
perceived social connection. Recent research has paid
particular attention to a subcategory of emotions having
the property of triggering self-transcendent states
(Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Haidt, 2003a, 2003b; Haidt &
Morris, 2009; Van Cappellen & Rimé, 2014). Called “self-
transcendent positive emotions,” they involve elevation,
compassion, admiration, gratitude, love, and awe. We
come back to these emotions later and show that they
trigger behaviors oriented toward others.
Conclusion
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) idea that a sense of unity can
result from the perception of undifferentiation between
self and others is thus widely encountered and sup-
ported by a variety of present-day research currents.
According to these works, the effect described by
Durkheim can result from a perception of equality (com-
munitas, CS), of shared identity (social identity), or of
shared conditions, experience, and action (PES). It can
also occur when characteristics of the self and of others
overlap (IOS) or when proper traits and shared traits
are seen as overlapping (IF). Furthermore, ST experi-
ences and ST emotions can also elicit a blurring of the
self–other distinction and an experience of unity with
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
other people. It will be the task of future research to
better organize the various concepts that were evoked
in this section. In this regard, we stress that in their
meta-analysis, Pizarro et al. (2022) found kama muta,
social identification, PES, fusion of identity, and ST emo-
tions (STEs) to be strongly intercorrelated, suggesting
that they belong to a family, or a global latent process
of reduction of self-other differentiation.
But does a reduction of the self-other differentiation
allow to conclude to a group consciousness or collective
feeling, as was advanced by Durkheim (1912/1915)? A
positive answer to this question would presume that a
group consciousness is possible beyond individual con-
sciousnesses and that a collective as such can be a locus
of subjective experience (for discussion, see Pacherie,
2017). In the current theoretical context, it seems rea-
sonable to limit oneself to considering that each indi-
vidual can, under some conditions, experience a sense
of oneness with others and be aware at the same time
that others around them are most likely having a similar
experience.
Moment 4: Emotions Transmission
and Amplification
Durkheim’s theory
According to Durkheim (1912/1915), the collective
expression of affects generates a transmission of emo-
tions from mind to mind. As in an echo chamber, the
emotions expressed are amplified:
Every sentiment expressed finds a place without
resistance in all the minds, which are very open
to outside impressions; each re-echoes the others,
and is re-echoed by the others. The initial impulse
thus proceeds, growing as it goes, as an avalanche
grows in its advance. (pp. 215–216)
He continued, “Human sentiments are intensified when
affirmed collectively. Sorrow, like joy, becomes exalted
and amplified when leaping from mind to mind, and
therefore expresses itself outwardly in the form of exu-
berant and violent movements” (p. 400).
Durkheim (1912/1915) stressed that this emotional
amplification takes place independently of the type of
emotion involved. Whatever the emotion, the key point
is that it be shared. This was made particularly clear in
the context of the author’s descriptions of mourning
rituals:
Since they weep together, they hold to one another
and the group is not weakened, in spite of the blow
9
which has fallen upon it. Of course, they have only
sad emotions in common, but communicating in
sorrow is still communicating. (Durkheim, 1912/1915,
p. 401)
He wrote, “It matters little that this exaltation was pro-
voked by a sad event, for it is real, notwithstanding,
and does not differ specifically from what is observed
in the happy feasts” (Durkheim, 1912/1915, p. 407).
Concerning the collective expression of affects, Dur-
kheim (1912/1915) thus advanced the following three
statements: (a) Expressed emotions are transmitted
from mind to mind, (b) collective expression has the
effect of amplifying emotions, and (c) outward expres-
sion leads to expressive manifestations of increased
intensity.
Current theory and research
We address the following three questions. First, does
emotion expression in a shared context generate trans-
mission of emotions? Second, are emotional experi-
ences amplified when emotions occur in a shared
context? Third, is emotional expression amplified when
emotions occur in a shared context?
Does emotion expression in shared context gener-
ate transmission of emotions? Much attention is paid
nowadays to the various processes by which emotions
might be transmitted in collective situations (for reviews
and discussion, see Chung et al., 2022; Parkinson, 2011,
2020, 2021; Salmela, 2012; Thonhauser, 2022; von Scheve
& Ismer, 2013). Many of these processes are noninter-
active (e.g., shared sources of emotional appraisal).
However, Durkheim (1912/1915) specifically invoked
interactive processes (i.e., reciprocal adjustments between
the participants; “re-echo of affects from mind to mind”).
Relevant processes currently discussed are of three types.
In the mimicry-based emotion-contagion model (Hatfield
et al., 1994; Söderkvist et al., 2018), senders’ facial
emotional displays would be automatically imitated by
receivers, and a facial feedback process would elicit
the corresponding emotional state in the receiver. This
model was poorly supported in empirical testing (for
reviews, see Hess & Fischer, 2013, 2014; Parkinson, 2020),
but more recent findings have offered better promises
(Olszanowski et al., 2019). An alternative account lies in
social appraisal (Manstead & Fischer, 2001), which states
that assembly participants would appraise events relying
on the emotional manifestations they observe in copar-
ticipants. In a review, Parkinson (2020) concluded that if
this inferential process is indeed observed in laboratory
conditions, it might intervene only to a reduced extent in
10
real-life interactions. According to a third model (Parkin-
son, 2019) named “orientational calibration,” convergent
emotional orientation would develop from lower-level
cuing process rather than from the registration of others’
emotions. For instance, people calibrate their gaze orien-
tation in function of another person’s shifting gaze; they
adapt their bodily movements to those of other people.
This model meets particularly well Durkheim’s notion of
re-echo of affects.
But we point out that beside a bottom-up process of
transmission through nonverbal interaction evoked by
Durkheim (1912/1915), many other routes exist for
inducing convergence of affects, including more elabo-
rate verbal top-down processes. Merely belonging to a
same collective already opens a whole lot of paths.
Thus, for collective emotions to emerge, participants
must appraise an event in similar ways (Frijda, 1986),
and members of a same collective have numerous
sources of emotional appraisal in common, such as
collective memories (Pennebaker et al., 1997), group-
based emotions (Smith, 1993), group-based sentiments
(von Scheve & Ismer, 2013), emotional attitudes (Oatley,
2000), emotional climate (de Rivera & Páez, 2007), and
norms, values, and conventions (Parkinson et al., 2005).
In addition, studies of verbal exchanges have abun-
dantly documented the transmissibility of emotions and
emotional content. Emotion indeed constitutes a major
incentive for communication (Rimé, 2009; Rimé et al.,
1991), and participants in collective assemblies can thus
be expected to express their emotions verbally to one
another. In sum, there is hardly any doubt that in a
collective assembly, emotions are transmitted from per-
son to person, whether by one of the ways just men-
tioned or by still others (Chung et al., 2022; Parkinson,
2011, 2020, 2021; Salmela, 2012; Thonhauser, 2022; von
Scheve & Ismer, 2013).
Are emotional experiences amplified when emotions
occur in shared context? Many studies have demon-
strated that experiencing affective conditions together with
others, even without communication, has the effect of
amplifying the experience. Participants liked pleasant
chocolate more and unpleasant chocolate less when they
tasted it simultaneously with another person than when
that other person was present but doing something else
(Boothby et al., 2014). However, this amplification effect
occurred only when coexperiencers were acquainted
(Boothby et al., 2016). In studies conducted by Shteynberg
et al. (2014), participants attended to a scary advertise-
ment, to negative and positive images, and to sad and
happy videos in various group settings. Simultaneous coat-
tention with one’s group members increased emotional
intensity relative to attending alone, to coattending with
strangers, or to attending nonsimultaneously with one’s
Rimé and Páez
group members. Thus, greater fear, gloom, and glee can
result from group attention to scary, sad, and happy events.
Emotional amplification effects in shared conditions were
also found in the context of exposure to stressful condi-
tions. Martin et al. (2015) had pairs of participants under-
going a cold-pressor task (immersing a hand in cold water
to induce pain and stress) once alone and once facing
their partner, who observed or also immersed a hand
(shared condition). A higher pain was reported when shar-
ing the task versus alone, but only when the partner was
a friend of the participant, or was a stranger the participant
bonded with before the task. Nahleen et al. (2019) repli-
cated these findings in conditions involving more stringent
experimental control. Several studies have shown shared
flow, or collective optimal experience, to evoke higher levels
of positive affect or joy than solitary flow (Magyaródi &
Oláh’s, 2015; Walker, 2010). Finally, in a meta-analytic review
of the so-called experiential advantage, or the fact that con-
sumers yield greater happiness from purchasing experiences
compared with material possessions, this advantage was
found superior when purchasing experiences were social
as opposed to solitary (Weingarten & Goodman, 2021).
Is emotional expression amplified when emotions
occur in shared context? Evidence exists that experi-
encing together has the effect of intensifying participants’
emotional expression. Group size, a proxy for the inten-
sity of shared experiencing, has been found to be associ-
ated with greater intensity of negatively and positively
valenced emotional responses. Thus, studies that ana-
lyzed archival records of lynching in the United States
have found that the larger the size of the crowd, the more
heinous and brutal the aggression was (Leader et al.,
2007). A multilevel study confirmed that greater crowd
density was associated with more intense emotional
responses (emotionally exalted dancing, animated move-
ment, and noise-making) at musical concerts (Liebst,
2019). An observational study showed that smile and
laughter rates increased as a function of group size (Mehu
& Dunbar, 2008). Levy and Fenley (1979) examined the
relationship between audience size and laughter at 15
preselected scenes during different showings of a satiri-
cal movie in the same theatre. They observed that the
larger the audience, the greater was the mean level of
laughter. Various experimental studies have confirmed
that the presence of another person who laughs or is
laughing at a joke encourages others to laugh and to
perceive the stimulus as more humorous (Chapman,
2017; Fuller & Sheehy-Skeffington, 1974; Smyth & Fuller,
1972). People laugh with higher intensity in high-density
groups (Freedman & Perlick, 1979) and when hearing
canned laughs that belongs to in-group members but not
when they originate from out-group members (Platow
et al., 2005).
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
Conclusion
Models of the transmission of emotions via interactive
routes are still under discussion at present. But there
are many other well-documented routes that can
account for the convergence of emotions among par-
ticipants in a collective assembly. Moreover, there is
ample empirical evidence to support Durkheim’s
(1912/1915) assertion that in a shared context, both
subjective emotional experience and outward expres-
sion of emotion are undergoing an amplification effect.
Note that this issue is of crucial importance in the
evolution of the process analyzed by Durkheim. Indeed,
if collective expression has the effect of transmitting
emotions and of intensifying both their experience and
their expression, it can lead only to further amplifica-
tion. The collective sharing of emotions is thus the
source of an upward spiral that, if sustained, can fuel
only a high-intensity emotional condition.
Moment 5: Effervescence
Durkheim’s theory
In Durkheim’s (1912/1915) view, the emotional exalta-
tion manifested by assembled participants leads to the
high-intensity manifestations he labeled “effervescence.”
Given the considerable interest in this concept today,
a careful attention to Durkheim’s use of the term is
required. “Effervescence” occurs 16 times in the body
of the 450-page English translation of The Elementary
Forms, either in isolation (three times) or qualified as
“state of effervescence” (five times), “collective effer-
vescence” (three times), and “general effervescence”
(two times), whereas “great mental effervescence,”
“great effervescence,” and “creative effervescence” each
occurred only once. Of Latin origin (ex = out of, fervere =
to be hot), “effervescence” is used both in French and
in English to denote the state of a bubbling liquid.
Surprisingly, at no point did Durkheim (1912/1915)
provide a formal definition of his figurative use of the
term. What he meant by effervescence should thus be
deduced. Glossing over the elements surrounding the
word “effervescence” in Durkheim’s book provides the
following approximation of a definition. Assemblies
lead to “a general stimulation of the individual forces”
(p. 211), a state that is “constantly increasing” (p. 218)
in “a psychical exaltation not far removed from delir-
ium” (p. 226); it is “translated outwardly by exuberant
movements which are not easily subjected to too care-
fully defined ends” (p. 381), and “vital energies are
over-excited, passions more active, sensations stronger”
(p. 422). Effervescence thus concerns a high-intensity
excitation combining exaltation and exuberance. At its
11
very first occurrence in the book, the word “efferves-
cence” is linked to two components:
That general effervescence results which is char-
acteristic of revolutionary or creative epochs. Now
this greater activity results in a general stimulation
of individual forces. Men see more and differently
now than in normal times. Changes are not merely
of shades and degrees; men become different. The
passions moving them are of such an intensity
that they cannot be satisfied—except by violent
and unrestrained actions, actions of super-human
heroism or of bloody barbarism. (pp. 210–211)
Effervescence thus involves, on the one hand, a sub-
jective experience of transformation and, on the other
hand, unrestrained behaviors qualified as violent and
barbaric. Of the 15 subsequent occurrences of “effer-
vescence” in the book (Durkheim, 1912/1915), their
context evokes violent and unrestrained behavior in
six cases (pp. 215, 218, 394, 395, 405, and 407), the
experience of transformation in five cases (pp. 218,
226, 422, and 427), and both themes at a time in two
cases (pp. 210 and 382; see the Supplemental Material
available online). Thus, the contexts confirm these two
components to constitute the core of effervescence in
Durkheim’s eyes. We examine each of them in more
details.
Effervescence as violent and unrestrained behav-
ior. Durkheim (1912/1915) repeatedly stressed that the
mere gathering of individuals has exceptionally energiz-
ing effects: “The very fact of the concentration acts as an
exceptionally powerful stimulant. When they are once
come together, a sort of electricity is formed by their col-
lecting which quickly transports them to an extraordinary
degree of exaltation” (p. 212).
Overpowered by these unusual collective forces, par-
ticipants are said to develop violent or promiscuous
behavior and an exaltation that can come close to
delirium:
This effervescence often reaches such a point that
it causes unheard-of actions. The passions released
are of such an impetuosity that they can be
restrained by nothing. They are so far removed
from their ordinary conditions of life, and they are
so thoroughly conscious of it, that they feel that
they must set themselves outside of and above
their ordinary morals. The sexes unite contrarily
to the rules governing sexual relations. Men
exchange wives with each other. Sometimes even
incestuous unions, which in normal times are
12
thought abominable and are severely punished,
are now contracted openly and with impunity.
(Durkheim, 1912/1915, p. 216)
He also wrote, “They utter terrible cries, fly into a pas-
sion and feel that they must tear and destroy; it is to
satisfy this need that they beat themselves, wound
themselves, and make their blood flow” (Durkheim,
1912/1915, p. 407).
Thus, the first component of effervescence described
by Durkheim (1912/1915) is marked by excesses of all
types, including violent and promiscuous behaviors,
exaltation close to delirium, sexual relations and inces-
tuous unions, and destruction and blood flow. Note that
by giving this importance to violence and debauchery
in his treatment of collective assemblies, Durkheim
introduced a severe contradiction in his theory. The
essence of this theory revolves around the view that
collective assemblies play an eminent role in the con-
stitution of societies. This was particularly explicitly
stated in the following text:
It is, in fact, at such moments of collective ferment
[he original French text says: “dans des moments
d’effervescence de ce genre”] that are born the
great ideals upon which civilizations rest. The
periods of creation or renewal occur when men
for various reasons are led into a closer relation-
ship with each other, when reunions and assem-
blies are most frequent, relationships better
maintained and the exchange of ideas most active.
Such was the great crisis of Christendom, the
movement of collective enthusiasm which, in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, bringing together
in Paris the scholars of Europe, gave birth to
Scholasticism. Such were the Reformation and
Renaissance, the revolutionary epoch and the
Socialist upheavals of the nineteenth century. At
such moments this higher form of life is lived with
such intensity and exclusiveness that it monopo-
lizes all minds to the more or less complete exclu-
sion of egoism and the commonplace. At such
times the ideal tends to become one with the real,
and for this reason men have the impression that
the time is close when the ideal will in fact be
realized and the Kingdom of God established on
earth. (Durkheim, 1911/1953, p. 48)
How could this noble constitutive function of effer-
vescence—qualified in this text as “higher form of life”!—
be achieved if collective assemblies would culminate in
violence, destruction, and sexual debauchery?
Effervescence as experience of transformation.
According to Durkheim (1912/1915), in the state of
Rimé and Páez
exaltation resulting from the amplification of emotions,
individuals feel driven by external powers that put them
in an unusual condition. Participants are thus lifted out of
themselves. Around them, their companions undergo the
same experience of transfiguration. Durkheim insisted
that they are not fooled by an illusion. The exaltation is
real. It is the product of forces external and superior to
the individual:
It seems to him that he has become a new being:
the decorations he puts on and the masks that
cover his face figure materially in this interior
transformation, and to a still greater extent, they
aid in determining its nature. And as at the same
time all his companions feel themselves trans-
formed in the same way and express this senti-
ment by their cries, their gestures and their general
attitude, everything is just as though he really
were transported into a special world, entirely
different from the one where he ordinarily lives,
and into an environment filled with exceptionally
intense forces that take hold of him and metamor-
phose him. How could such experiences as these,
especially when they are repeated every day for
weeks, fail to leave in him the conviction that
there really exist two heterogeneous and mutually
incomparable worlds? One is that where his daily
life drags wearily along; but he cannot penetrate
into the other without at once entering into rela-
tions with extra- ordinary powers that excite him
to the point of frenzy. The first is the profane world,
the second, that of sacred things. (Durkheim, 1912/
1915, pp. 218–219)
In sum, according to Durkheim (1912/1915), the
emotional amplification developing in the assembly
generates a surge of power that participants experience
as a transportation out of oneself and an accession to
the “world of sacred things.” It is in such a framework,
wrote Durkheim, that the feeling of the sacred estab-
lishes itself and that the religious idea would be born.
Current theory and research
Effervescence as violent and unrestrained behav-
ior. The scenes described by Durkheim (1912/1915) are
transcribed from reports of field anthropologists of his time.
Still today, field anthropologists emphasize extreme mani-
festations by which collective phenomena differ from every-
day life. Recently, a senior anthropology scholar stated,
Now we know that the phenomenon of collective
effervescence is an altered state of consciousness
(ASC), commonly called a dissociative state or
trance that occurs in some rituals. . . . Durkheim
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
talked about physiological phenomena that were
not typical in “normal social life” that we now call
driving mechanisms which can produce ASCs, for
example, repetitive drum beats, sensory deprivation
and fasting, ingestion of mind-altering substances,
and communal rituals. (Buehler, 2012, p. 79)
In contrast, in sociology and psychology, definitions
of effervescence generally ignore the aspects of vio-
lence and unbridled behavior evoked by Durkheim
(1912/1915). For Collins (2014), a successful ritual
“transmutes any shared emotions into a new emotion:
the collective effervescence of solidarity” (p. 300). Páez
et al. (2015) defined effervescence as a multifaceted
process of social synchronization. Haidt et al. (2008)
referred to Durkheim’s effervescence as the intense
passion and joy generated by periodic events. Hopkins
et al. (2016) considered that the strong positive emo-
tions they recorded in collective assemblies are similar
to Durkheim’s effervescence. Fiske (2020) argued that
kama muta, the surge of positive affect elicited by the
sudden salience of communal sharing, has all of the
features of Durkheim’s collective effervescence. For
Gabriel et al. (2020), effervescence involves both a
sense of connection to others and a sensation of sacred-
ness, and among respondents to their enquiry, three
quarters reported experiencing effervescence at least
once a week, and one third experienced it daily.
In sum, the violent and unrestrained component of
effervescence highlighted by Durkheim (1912/1915) is
absent from current works on collective processes.
Instead, these works promote a conception of efferves-
cence that is at the antipodes of the barbaric manifesta-
tions evoked in Les Formes Elémentaires. Effervescence
is currently described in a positive tone. The question
then arises as to why there is such a radical difference
in perspective on the same phenomenon.
First, recall that views linking collective processes
with unbridled behavior were widely promoted in
Durkheim’s time by the writings of Gustave Le Bon
(1895/1997). For the latter, when in crowds, people lose
their sense of self and their ability to reason to such an
extent that only emotional contagion and exacerbated
emotions are left. Participants are thus brought back to
the barbaric time preceding civilization. Representa-
tions linking crowds and norm violations were wide-
spread at the time (for a comprehensive historical
review, see Moscovici, 1981, 1993). Later, similar views
were supported by deindividuation theory (Diener,
1980; Zimbardo, 1969), according to which in collective
situations, variables such as anonymity, large groups,
and reduced self-awareness cause antinormative behav-
ior. However, opposite to the hypothesis that deindi-
viduation decreases self-control and diminishes
13
responsiveness to the situation, a meta-analytic review
indicated that under deindividuating conditions, par-
ticipants behaved more in accord with situational norms
(Postmes & Spears, 1998). Such findings matched the
alternative model of crowd behavior advanced in the
context of SIT (e.g., Reicher, 1984, 1987, 2001; Reicher
et al., 1995). It stressed that collective situations do not
lead to a loss of personal identity at all. Rather, partici-
pants move from a personal identity to a more social
or collective identity. In situations in which the preva-
lence of the personal self is reduced, participants
become likely to act according to local norms (i.e., any
norm that is salient in that specific situation). To an
outside observer, such acts may seem senseless or unin-
hibited, whereas to the group, they are rational and
normative (Reicher, 1987). Social-psychology studies
have confirmed that violent crowd actions are not unre-
strained, are targeted at specific individuals and institu-
tions (Allen, 1970), and are governed by the sense of
social identity that individuals share as members of that
community (Drury et al., 2020; Stott et al., 2018). Alto-
gether thus, contemporary evidence diverges radically
from the olde representation of crowds as sources of
irrational explosions of emotion.
A further explanation is to be considered for the dif-
ference in views on effervescence between Durkheim
(1912/1915) and contemporary scholars. A gap exists
between Durkheim’s documentary sources and those
available today. In his concern for the roots of collective
phenomena, Durkheim relied entirely on field anthro-
pologists’ descriptions of exotic rituals. By contrast,
nowadays, the media expose countless images of col-
lective assemblies of all types: religious and civil ceremo-
nies, commemorations, sports, musical events, folklore
events, collective festivities, sociopolitical events, and so
forth. Although extreme manifestations may occasionally
occur at such events, everyone can witness that the vast
majority of collective assemblies are free of violence,
destruction, and sexual debauchery.
In conclusion, the violent and unrestrained compo-
nent of effervescence highlighted by Durkheim
(1912/1915) is not supported by the current evidence.
Effervescence as experience of transformation. If
the first component of effervescence described by
Durkheim (1912/1915) is not supported by contempo-
rary views, the opposite goes for the second one. Recent
studies of STEs provide increasing support for Dur-
kheim’s claims that assembly participants experience a
transportation out of oneself. STEs gather a subset of
positive emotions—elevation, compassion, admiration,
gratitude, love, and awe—that were found to transform
temporarily those who experience them (Haidt, 2003a,
2003b). Participants exposed to STE-eliciting conditions
14
shifted from self-absorption and selfish concerns to out-
ward concerns such as other peoples’ interests, environ-
mental concerns, or group concerns (Algoe & Haidt,
2009; Haidt, 2003a, 2003b; Haidt & Morris, 2009; Hanley
& Garland, 2019; Stellar et al., 2017; Van Cappellen &
Rimé, 2014).
Among STEs, awe is particularly likely to be experi-
enced in a collective assembly. In his classic text,
Edmund Burke (1757) emphasized how the experience
of power can trigger an awe with its double feeling of
terror and amazement. In line with this view, awe was
empirically defined as resulting from the experience of
something larger than oneself (Keltner & Haidt, 2003).
The experience of power viewed by Durkheim
(1912/1915) at the peak of a collective assembly is thus
a prototypical awe-triggering condition. There is empiri-
cal evidence of the transformative effects of experienc-
ing awe. Shiota et al. (2007) found it associated with a
sense of the smallness of the self as well as some dis-
engagement from awareness of the self. They also
observed awe to affect the content of the self-concept
by de-emphasizing the individual self and increasing
one’s sense of the self as part of a greater whole. Experi-
mental studies supported the transformative potential
of awe toward outward social concerns. Thus, compared
with control participants, participants who were exposed
to awe-inducing videos expressed stronger feelings of
oneness with friends and with people in general (Van
Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012). Along the same lines,
Pizarro et al. (2021) found video-induced experiences
of STEs involving awe, love, and kama muta to be asso-
ciated to increased identification with all humanity (i.e.,
increased concern for all other human beings) and to
motivations to help distant others. Finally, experimental
evidence exists that awe produces not only a transpor-
tation out of oneself but also an accession to the
“world of sacred things.” Participants who watched awe-
inducing videos (awe of nature; awe at childbirth) sub-
sequently reported feeling themselves more religious
and more spiritual than participants who viewed control
videos (Saroglou et al., 2008). In a recent review,
Monroy & Keltner, 2022 concluded that awe engages a
diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial rela-
tionality, greater social integration, and a heightened
sense of meaning.
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) view that involvement in a
collective assembly culminates in an experience of per-
sonal transformation was directly supported by a large-
scale longitudinal study of participants at immersive
secular mass gatherings lasting 3 or more days. Yudkin
et al. (2022) assessed the degree to which participants
in these gatherings had had an experience they consid-
ered transformative (“Have you had a transformative
experience at [field site]?”). Self-reported transformative
Rimé and Páez
experience increased over time at mass gatherings and
persisted at least 6 months after attendance. Overall,
63.2% of participants reported being at least “somewhat”
transformed, and 19.5% said they were “absolutely”
transformed. The most frequently reported qualities of
participants’ experiences involved feeling socially con-
nected to something larger than oneself. Thus, these
findings suggest that the most prevalent attributes of
transformative experiences are socially oriented (i.e.,
oriented toward others and the community).
Conclusion
Whereas the “violence and unbridled behavior” com-
ponent that Durkheim (1912/1915) evoked about effer-
vescence appears irrelevant in the current scientific
context outside anthropology, the “self-transformation
and access to the sacred” component of effervescence
is more and more supported. According to laboratory
findings, emotions that are most likely aroused in col-
lective participation produce a transformation of the
person involving lessened self-focus and higher out-
ward orientation. These emotions are also capable of
stimulating feelings of a religious nature. Recent inves-
tigation of collective assemblies confirmed that partici-
pation stimulates socially oriented self-transformative
experiences in the form of feeling connected to some-
thing larger than oneself.
Discussion
So far, we have examined the successive moments in
the unfolding of collective assemblies as described by
Durkheim (1912/1915). For each of these moments, we
identified corresponding processes that are documented
by current empirical research. The data from this
research thus provide a new look, empirically validated,
of the processes at work in collective assemblies. We
now briefly summarize the key elements of this renewed
reading of Durkheim’s theory:
•• When they meet, participants realize that they
share features, purposes, or fate. They thus rede-
fine their identity and categorize themselves with
coparticipants in terms of context-relevant fea-
tures. As a result of this identity shift, participants’
behaviors align with the norms and values of the
assembly.
•• Next, the perception of a shared social identity,
the development of homogeneous movements
and motor mimicry, and the perception of shared
experience all contribute to participants’ feeling
of having merged minds. A multitude of psycho-
social effects follows, including prosocial attitudes
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
and behaviors; increased interdependence; feel-
ings of closeness, liking, and empathy; perceived
social bonding; increased affiliation for copartici-
pants; enhanced cooperative behaviors; feelings
of trust; feelings of similarity and shared belong-
ing; compassion; altruistic behavior; and greater
social closeness.
•• As documented in sociology, anthropology, and
social psychology, the perception of equality, of
shared identity, or of shared conditions, experi-
ence, and action can entail a reduced self-other
differentiation. The same effect can also occur
when characteristics of the self and of others
overlap or when proper traits and shared traits
are seen as overlapping. Thus, the perception of
self-others equivalence (equality/similarity/over-
lap) emerges as a critical factor driving a reduced
differentiation. In fact, the perception of equiva-
lence among the participants is already implicit
in the previous steps, and a self-others overlap
is thus continually deepening in the process of a
collective assembly.
•• In the assembly, emotions are transmitted and
shared by a multitude of ways. Experiencing
emotions together with others has the effect of
amplifying these emotions and their outward
manifestations. This effect seems to depend in
part on the social ties binding participants. Of
course, all the preceding processes are setting up
such ties.
•• In the assembly, the combination of emotional
transmission and emotional amplification is
bound to feed up an upward spiral leading to an
ever-increasing intensification of emotions. Thus,
the emotional state of the participants is expected
to evolve to a climax.
•• The emotional amplification prompts sensations
of heightened energy and empowerment among
participants in such a way that they experience
self-transformation. Experiencing the power of
the assembly is a likely trigger for the self-
transcendent emotion of awe. Awe reduces the
sense of individual self, increases the sense of
self as part of a larger whole, orients participants
toward outwards social concerns, and induces
feelings of oneness with others. It also feeds up
feelings of the religious or sacred.
The core effect: blurring the differences
This renewed reading of Durkheim’s (1912/1915) model
in the light of current empirical evidence leads to the
15
realization that the core of what happens in collective
assemblies is quite simple. Indeed, at each successive
moment, one and the same effect is repeated. It consists
in the ever-growing openness of participants to one
another. Identity shifts, homogeneous movements,
shared experience, perception of equivalence, ampli-
fied emotions, and self-transcendent emotions all fuel
the feeling that the other is an alter ego. Moment after
moment, this same effect goes on deepening. Conse-
quently, perceived differences between self and others
are steadily narrowing. Reinforced by the upward spiral
of amplified emotions, this evolution necessarily leads
to a high-intensity state. Everyone experiences a pro-
found self-transformation on two levels with, on the
one hand, a considerably heightened energy that gener-
ates an experience of empowerment and, on the other
hand, a self that is profoundly “socialized” and thus
radically different from its daily life, self-centered coun-
terpart. The simplified trajectory of collective assem-
blies revealed here demonstrates that the successive
moments of these assemblies all pursue a same goal.
It consists in blurring the differences between individu-
als in such a way that they will experience their equiva-
lence—in identity, in thoughts, in motives, in behaviors,
in expression, and in emotions. This experience of
equivalence prompts a sense of unity among assembled
participants—e pluribus unum.
The link to Durkheim’s broader project
This trajectory, which highlights a same effect through-
out the different moments of a collective assembly,
should be regarded in relation to Durkheim’s (1912/
1915) broader project. His idea was that in everyday
life, individuals are disconnected from their group.
They are focused on their own business, their utilitarian
activities, and their personal concerns. In doing so,
people lose contact with the socially shared representa-
tions that bind them to their community. By the same
token, they lose the tools that give meaning to life and
enable them to face human existence. They thus
become vulnerable. From his analysis of elementary
religious practices, Durkheim concluded that the func-
tion of a collective assembly is to revitalize the partici-
pants by opening them up to their community again.
The collective process has to transform individuals and
to replace in their consciousness what is personal and
distinct by what is collective and shared. At that
moment, individuals will forget themselves in favor of
what is common. Their conduct will be geared by the
standards of the community, and their solidarity will be
maximal. The least we can say is that the view devel-
oped by Durkheim on how collective assemblies
16
achieve this goal is remarkably supported by the empir-
ical data available a century later.
What exactly is collective effervescence?
We have emphasized that nowhere in his writings does
Durkheim provide a definition of effervescence. Our
analysis of his work leads us to propose what follows.
Collective effervescence refers to the considerably
amplified emotional state manifested by the participants
of a collective assembly because of their experience of
shared emotions and the ensuing reciprocal emotional
activation. It thus denotes a shared emotional state of
high intensity. Effervescence does not necessarily imply
high arousal. The coexperience and emotional coactiva-
tion that fuel effervescence may rest on low-arousal
emotions highly saturated in negative or positive
valence, such as sadness (e.g., at a funeral) or deep joy
(e.g., at a Buddhist ceremony). The coexperience and
coactivation enhance the intensity of the emotion, that
is, the magnitude of its hold on a person’s psycho-
physiological condition. Collective effervescence can
involve both routine emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, anger,
fear) and more complex emotional states (e.g., kama
muta, awe, collective pride). In all cases, the same effect
follows, that of the transformation of the participants
who feel carried above themselves by the power of the
collective experience.
Note that physical copresence might not be a neces-
sary condition in the elicitation of the process described
by Durkheim (1912/1915). The coexperience and emo-
tional coactivation that fuel effervescence might also
develop between participants who experience only a
virtual copresence. This was suggested by the findings
of a large-scale analysis of the content of tweets emitted
by French users before and after the November 2015
terrorist attacks in Paris (García & Rimé, 2019). More
negative emotional exchanges at the time of the attacks
were followed by effects suggesting that participants
involved in such exchanges had been carried above
themselves. They evidenced a marked long-term
increase in the use of lexical indicators of solidarity,
prosocial behavior, and positive affect.
About the collected evidence
Most of the empirical evidence we have gathered on
Durkheim’s (1912/1916) model of collective assemblies
comes from studies involving dyads or other inter­
personal contexts, not collectivities. This was to be
expected because most research on social behavior
takes the individual as the unit of analysis. Although
conducted in research areas totally foreign to the study
Rimé and Páez
of collective phenomena, the studies we have reviewed
are well appropriate for testing the specific hypotheses
we considered. They most often rest on experimental
designs of great precision, and their results were gener-
ally replicated by several teams and under various con-
ditions. Methodologies based on the collective level
are now progressively emerging. For instance, Draper
(2014) examined data from 434 religious congrega-
tions. Using the congregation as the unit of analysis,
the study showed that collective effervescence corre-
lates strongly with social solidarity. Likewise, in a sur-
vey of a large music festival at which tens of thousands
of visitors built tent camps and engaged in extensive
drinking and partying activities, Liebst (2019) adopted
tent camps’ locations (N = 50) as the unit of analysis.
Results demonstrated that crowding density was mark-
edly associated with the level of effervescence reported
by participants.
One may wonder whether there is any counterevidence
to Durkheim’s (1912/1915) model, such as negative rather
than positive effects of collective assemblies? Some studies
on the effect of religious rituals in distressed individuals
did record negative effects of participation, such as
increased anxiety and higher somatization or bodily symp-
toms (e.g., Thompson & Vardaman, 1997; Zeidner &
Hammer, 1992; see also Hopkins & Reicher, 2016). How-
ever, similar studies that paid attention to measuring
effects in both directions have frequently observed at once
both positive and negative effects for participants (e.g.,
Pargament et al., 1994; Park & Cohen, 1993). This has also
been observed in the study of collective processes set up
in aftermath of periods of collective violence. Thus, vic-
tims of collective violence in Guatemala who participated
in mourning and funeral ceremonies reported enhanced
negative affect, sense of injustice, and mourning, but their
participation was also associated with a greater recon-
struction of social support and a higher willingness to
help other people (Beristaín et al., 2000). After the 1994
genocide in Rwanda, participation in the Gacaca truth and
reconciliation commissions reactivated negative affect and
posttraumatic-stress symptoms among survivors, but it
also improved indicators of their social integration
(Kanyangara et al., 2007; Rimé et al., 2011). Such findings
were replicated in a study of community-level reconcili-
ation forums in Sierra Leone (Cilliers et al., 2016). These
results support the general principle that collective
encounters heighten the emotions involved. It is therefore
consistent that a mourning ritual heightens sadness.
Whatever the emotion, the key to the positive effects
of a collective process is that the emotion gets shared.
In the introduction of this article, we insisted that
for Durkheim (1912/1915), survival, well-being, and
social integration are tightly interrelated. It could then
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
be argued that the strongest test of Durkheim’s model
would consist of an examination of effects of collectiv-
ity on survival. Actually, evidence from meta-analytic
investigation already supported the effect of collective
gatherings on survival. McCullough et al. (2000) exam-
ined 41 research reports in which a measure of religious
involvement was assessed as a predictor of all-cause
mortality. A positive relationship (r = .10) between reli-
gious activity and survival or longer life expectancy
was found. Results showed that this relationship was
explained by the frequency of participation in public
religious rituals.
Alternative perspectives
Is a collective participation in an assembly a necessary
condition to yield the personal transformation that,
according to Durkheim’s (1912/1915) model, opens
health and well-being benefits? The investigation of the
effects of positive emotional experiences opens an impor-
tant avenue for reflection on this question. Alice Isen’s
research has abundantly demonstrated that positive emo-
tional experiences modify individuals both cognitively
and socially (for a review, see Isen, 2000) in a direction
suggesting that these individuals are, as in the collective
effervescence, carried above themselves. Cognitively,
compared with individuals whose emotional state was
negative or neutral, those in a positive emotional state
were found more creative, open to information, willing
to explore, and successful in synthesis and problem-
solving tasks. Socially, these individuals took into account
the point of view of others more and were more sociable,
cooperative, generous, socially responsible, and apt to
negotiate. Since Isen’s (2000) review, new data largely
confirmed her observations. At the cognitive level, com-
pared with participants in control conditions, participants
in a positive-emotion setting evidenced a more global
visual processing and a broader repertoire of action
(Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005), a more extended visual
attention (Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2006), a broadened
semantic access and visuospatial attention (Rowe et al.,
2007), and a higher creativity (Baas et al., 2008; Davis,
2009). At the social level, relative to control participants,
individuals who experienced positive emotions increased
their trust (Dunn & Schweitzer, 2005), formed more inclu-
sive social categories (Dovidio et al., 1995; Isen et al.,
1992), formed more common in-group identities (Dovidio
et al., 1998), reduced the own-race bias in face perception
( Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005), manifested greater
perspective-taking and compassion for a person from a
dissimilar cultural background (Nelson, 2009), and evi-
denced higher levels of prosocial or helping behaviors
(e.g., Carlson et al., 1988).
17
Fredrickson (1998, 2013) gathered all such findings
together with studies from her own lab in a broaden-
and-build theory of positive emotions. According to this
theory, the evolutionary function of positive emotions
is to build an individual’s resources for survival. This
build function is achieved by a momentarily broadened
scope of awareness. The theory states that positive
emotions, relative to negative emotions and neutral
states, widen the array of thoughts, action urges, and
percepts that spontaneously come to mind (Fredrickson,
2013). Obviously, there is a huge overlap between the
broadening effects thus documented as following
a positive emotional experience and those we have
listed as resulting or supposed to result from collective
participation.
Positive emotional experiences are far from being
alone in eliciting effects reminding the blurring of self-
other differentiation described in Durkheim’s (1912/1915)
model of collective assemblies. For reasons that the
history of science might profitably address, there is cur-
rently a plethora of studies documenting phenomena
of reduced self-other differentiation and rapprochement
between individuals. As was shown in our review of
current theory and research related to Durkheim’s
Moment 2 (homogeneous manifestations), the depen-
dent variables of these studies included prosocial atti-
tudes, altruistic behavior, interdependence, feeling of
closeness, liking, empathy, compassion, affiliation, simi-
larity, belonging, cooperation, trust, integration, “click-
ing,” rapport, desire to interact, and connectedness,
among others. In addition, in our review of current
theory and research relevant to Durkheim’s Moment 3
(group consciousness), we encountered a plethora of
concepts denoting social processes involving a sense of
nondifferentiation, union between individuals, together-
ness, we-ness, oneness with one’s peers, unison, and so
forth. They included communitas, CS, social identity,
PES, IOS, IF, and self-transcendence.
If so many conditions can produce effects of broad-
ening of the self or of blurring of the self-other differ-
entiation, what then remains proper to the process of
collective assemblies described by Durkheim
(1912/1915)? As our review showed, Durkheim’s pro-
cess has the particularity of encompassing almost all
the others. Moreover, it carries out this integration of
the operative variables in a cumulative manner. Moment
after moment, the variables that produce the central
effect succeed one another and intensify this effect
further, whereas it was already largely fed in the pre-
ceding moments. The unfolding of the successive
moments takes place in an almost inexorable way
because of, in particular, the volatility of the shared
emotions. Being immersed in the group and in close
18
proximity to the many others who are participating in
the same process and experiencing the same effects
obviously creates optimal conditions for the emergence
and intensification of the experience of unity. Positive
emotions, too, are mobilized by collective participation
(Ehrenreich, 2007) so that their self-broadening effects
signaled by Isen and by Fredrickson are added to those
of the many other variables. In sum, the process
described by Durkheim is arguably unparalleled in its
power to produce the effects that have been described.
Blurring of self-other differentiation
The notion of a reduction of differences between indi-
viduals, of a blurring of individual boundaries, and of
a sense of fusion between individuals and their sur-
roundings or their group is not easily conceived for
people who are situated in an individualistic culture.
Nevertheless, our literature review showed that this
notion is well represented in current social sciences. In
addition, the phenomenon of blurring of individual
boundaries could be evidenced under very simple labo-
ratory conditions. In an investigation of the effects of
synchronized multisensory stimulation, Paladino et al.
(2010) exposed participants to a video image of a
stranger. The experiment consisted of brushing the par-
ticipant’s cheek synchronously (vs. asynchronously)
with brushing applied to the face seen on the video.
Compared with participants in the asynchronous condi-
tions, participants in the synchronous one perceived
their face as more similar to the face of the stranger,
manifested a higher overlap with the other in an IOS
measurement, felt more attracted to the other, projected
the self onto the other more in an inference task, and
evidenced a higher anchoring of their behavior in that
of the other in a conformity task. This study thus
showed that the self-other overlap can result from a
rudimentary sensorial experience.
We add that the experience of fusion with another is
far from being an alien experience to humans. In fact,
it corresponds to their initial condition of existence. A
human being develops in symbiosis with another human
being during a lengthy intrauterine period. After birth,
a fusional relationship is perpetuated between parent
and child in interactive synchrony—exchanges of sen-
sory, hormonal, and physiological signals during social
interactions—that spans the period of early gestation to
weaning (Feldman, 2007). These symbiotic relationships
constitute the grounds on which children can gradually
undertake their autonomy and develop a growing indi-
vidualization. Even when individualized, individuals
continue to be linked to their entourage by attachment
ties—ties that are particularly reactivated every time an
Rimé and Páez
emotion is experienced (e.g., Gable & Reis, 2010; Rimé,
2009, 2020). Collective assemblies therefore only refresh
a relational potential that is existing in individuals since
their most distant origins.
Conclusion: an ever-increasing
socio-integrative experience
At the end of this review of Durkheim’s (1912/1915)
text and of the relevant empirical data currently avail-
able, we conclude that participation in a successful
collective assembly progressively leads participants to
a high-intensity experience of self-transformation. This
experience is paved by the socio-integrative effects
accumulated in the previous phases of the collective
process. The proximal trigger of the high-intensity state
lies in the ever-increasing amplification of emotions
in the assembly. Participants then experience a self-
transformation resting on intense emotions, high energy,
and empowerment. It is accompanied by reduced self-
focus, enhanced social orientation, and possibly feeling
of sacredness. Following our analysis of Durkheim’s
notion of effervescence, it seems reasonable to retain
the use of this term to denote conditions involving the
various elements just enumerated. This article showed
that the term “effervescence,” devoid of connotations
of violence and barbarism, covers nevertheless excep-
tional moments. At the height of a collective assembly,
in a state of high emotional intensity, and sustained by
the power of the mass, participants experience a drastic
reduction in their differentiation from their copartici-
pants. What they can see around them indicates that a
multitude of others are undergoing a similar experi-
ence. This is a potential source of an experience of
mise en abyme, during which each person feels dupli-
cated in the multitude that surrounds them. This is also
a potential source of perception of generalized har-
mony, which is capable of eliciting deep joy (e.g.,
Ehrenreich, 2007). Of course, most collective experi-
ences will probably not produce such extreme effects.
But what can be stated at the end of our analysis is that
as soon as one steps into a collective assembly, the
psychosocial process described in this article is set in
motion. And the further into this process one goes, the
more a feeling of oneness is felt.
Transparency
Action Editor: Klaus Fiedler
Editor: Klaus Fiedler
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of
interest with respect to the authorship or the publication
of this article.
Perspectives on Psychological Science XX(X)
ORCID iD
Bernard Rimé https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8487-575X
Acknowledgments
Due to the countless questions, criticisms and suggestions
received, this article owes a great deal to its anonymous
reviewers, to Adam Cohen who was action editor of an earlier
version of the manuscript, and to the action of Klaus Fiedler.
Note
1. One reviewer suggested that contemporary theories of social
rituals should also be examined here. It is beyond the scope
of this article to review these theories and compare them with
Durkheim’s (1912/1915) visions because with the exception of
Collins’s (2004) model, which is an extension of Durkheim’s
ideas, contemporary theories of rituals are more specific in
scope. For example, Whitehouse’s model of social rituals (e.g.,
Whitehouse & Lanman, 2014) is specifically aimed at low-
frequency rituals heavily loaded in negative affect that are
thought to feed into intrapsychic mechanisms of affectively
charged autobiographical memory. Comparatively, Durkheim’s
theory is unique in that it addresses all types of collective gath-
erings regardless of their degree of ritualization, their positive
or negative valence, their high or low level of arousal, or their
high or low frequency, and it proposes a sequence of interper-
sonal and social processes that produce a wide range of effects.
In view of the abundance of references to Durkheim’s theory
today and because at the time his model was formulated, it was
not yet the norm to conduct empirical tests, we examine the
following questions: What is the validity of this model today?
Do we find empirical arguments that would justify the attention
contemporary scholars give it?
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