From Pre-Individual Affect to Social Emotion—A Study of Collective Emotions from the Perspective of Affect Theory
Since the late 1970s,an emotion turn has spread across various disciplines leading to a profound paradigm shift.Its focus are primarily on individual emotions,with collective emotions receiving relatively less attention.Existing studies on collective emotions,whether inclined towards the individualistic or the emergentist model,generally agree that collective emotions involve the convergence and aggregation of group members'emotional responses to certain events or objects.Both models,however,rest on an unquestioned assumption that there exists a prototype emotion or emotional program,which is either transmitted flawlessly between individuals or uniformly distributed to each member by the collective entity,leading to a homogenous emotional state among all individuals.This assumption overlooks the dynamic and"achievement"nature of collective emotions,implying that shared emotions are not preformed and immutable.Consequently,previous research on collective emotions has failed to adequately illustrate the mechanism or procedures that individuals,following specific events,interactions,or stimuli,share certain emotions through processes and mechanisms other than flawless transmission.Moreover,this presumption has not satisfactorily answered two closely related questions.Does the sharing of a certain emotion within a group require every individual to share the same feeling and experience from the onset(i.e.,is there a prototype emotion)?And,beyond this shared emotion,do individuals within the group also experience emotions beyond the scope of what can be shared?This paper,grounded in affect theory,seeks to explore questions that prior studies have not effectively answered.It proposes that the formation of collective emotions begins with each individual's vague and amorphous affective states,essentially transforming these pre-individual affective states into social emotions.This transformation allows what are originally embodied individual experiences to be disseminated in a form that is collectively comprehensible and thus exerts influence at a societal level.This lays the groundwork for the collective sharing of certain emotions.The final formation of collective emotions,however,hinges on three mechanisms:emotional circulation,expression,and pedagogy.Firstly,the widespread circulation of emotional discourse enables a multitude of individuals to engage with their vague affective states from a common perspective set by discursive symbols,fostering a close adherence among individuals.Secondly,the widespread dissemination of these emotional discourse symbols makes the expression of emotions feasible.Emotional expression is not merely a display and notification of an individual's existing emotional state;it also reciprocally shapes the emotional state itself.Therefore,emotional expression through shared emotional symbols can collectively strengthen and confirm the emotional experiences these symbols represent.Thirdly,emotional pedagogy,facilitated by the continual evocation and expression of these emotions,involves distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate emotional responses to instruct people what to feel and how to feel.This mechanism can endow certain emotions with a recognized naturalness,while suppressing potential alternative emotional responses within the group.Despite this,the fluidity of affective states cannot be fully captured or contained by emotional categories with explicit sociocultural connotations.The presence of affective residuals suggests that collective emotions are not subject to arbitrary manipulation.
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