Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Uncategorized

Description: Self-Transcendence Emotions – those that respond to others-focused appraisals and that bind people in bigger categories (Van Cappellen & Rimé, 2013; hereafter, STEs) – can be experienced in front of images, events and personalities, and motivate individuals to orient towards elements (e.g., groups, ideas, concepts) greater than themselves. Such as value orientations that seek to promote universalism and benevolence (i.e., Transcendent values; Schwartz, 2007), they link the individual with categorically superior entities (e.g., the nation), provoking a change of attitudes towards goals that transcend their own individuality (Keltner and Haidt, 2003; Stellar et al., 2017). Different authors relate self-transcendence with spirituality, as they have common cognitive and affective elements (see Piedmont, 2012), and the figure of an all-powerful deity has been an elicitor of STEs (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 2003). In collectivist or power-distant cultures, especially, people tend to worship powerful figures, such as spiritual or political leaders (see Basabe & Paez, 2017). Positive transcendent values as well as positive STEs, lead the individual to positive attitudes towards others, such as empathy or care for the weak (Pizarro et al., 2020). However, negative STEs can guide destructive action tendencies towards the outgroup. In this regard, a clarification must be made regarding the dual nature of Schwartz's (2007) transcendence values of universalism: the universalism of moral exclusion, oriented towards the ingroup, and the universalism of moral inclusion, which also includes the outgroup. A study carried out in the context of the conflict between Israel and Palestine confirmed that the figure of the martyr (i.e., agreement to the fact of sacrificing one's life for the homeland) can evoke STEs in the members of the ingroup. These STEs, while promoting love of the homeland, can inspire members of the community to sacrifice themselves for the martyr’s beliefs (i.e., the communal cause) against the outgroup. In this sense, hate is a STE because it connects the individual with the outgroup regardless of the relationship he or she has with it. A person can feel thus that he or she does not deserve the actions of the other group and this type of practice leads to a reinforcement of group-based beliefs and a greater identification with the ingroup (see Fischer, Halperin, Canetti, & Jasini, 2018). On the other side, many collective rituals may trigger STEs. For example, patriotic or leader-exaltation rituals reinforce group cohesion and positive emotions towards the in-group by glorifying the violent past. However, and at the same time, they reinforce negative emotions towards the outgroup by provoking negative action tendencies towards it. This shows that this type of ritual is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it reinforces positive emotions towards the reference group, provoke a high social identification and identity fusion among its members, and generate a disposition to carry out extreme behaviors in their favor (Hatibovic, 2017). Finally, it is also expected that STEs promote subjective well-being (Cusi et al., 2018).They can increase people’s well-being directly, indirectly, or both (Pizarro et al., 2020). A possible explanation that can also be related to societal implications. People from collectivist cultures (i.e., with strong cultural norms and power distance) live the experiences (positive and negative) with less intensity and face them from suppression and self-control in order not to alter the ingroup balance. They also tend to report increased frequency of negative emotions (Basabe & Paez, 2017). While in individualistic cultures the expression of intense negative emotions is more accepted, which may explain, in part, higher levels of well-being in this type of societies. Self-transcendence values are associated to a greater extent with eudaimonic well-being than with hedonic well-being (Bilbao, 2008). In addition, self transcendence emotions can be a characteristic of the group and in that sense be a collective emotion, since they are the dominant emotions perceived in others (De Rivera & Páez, 2007). Emotional climates are socially constructed, but at the same time objective, because they exist independently of an individual's personal feelings (De Rivera & Páez, 2007; De Rivera, 1992). In other words, the emotions that people perceive in others have different consequences in contrast to their own emotional experience. For example, I personally may not feel elevation or wonder at Arafat, but I do notice that the atmosphere ceremony or the prevailing emotional climate in the country is inspiration and veneration before him. When I perceive that they are inspired and venerate Arafat, there are elements of an emotion of collective transcendence. This will influence my behavior and emotion. The emotions perceived in others influence individual well-being (a positive self trascendence emotional climate will predict greater positive personal affectivity later), beliefs (a positive self transcendence emotional climate feeds personal, group and collective post-stress growth) and behavior (a negative one of sadness, fear and anger guides intergroup avoidance behaviors, another positive of self trascendence should reinforce por ingroup actions) even controlling personal emotions. However, the collective forms of emotions, as collective emotional orientations (Bar-Tal, Halperin & de Rivera, 2007) not only refer to the group, not only are lived generally within the group, but are based on a collective and are a process with emerging properties. They have a sociotropic content and are composed of beliefs, emotions and behaviours related to groups and institutions social (the country worships and is inspired by Arafat). They have a collective origin, since have social causes and are based on social relationships - the veneration and inspiration before Arafat has a basis in Palestinian history and is based on the relations in that society and with other nations. It's about externalized, shared, and distributed in social groups - the memory that inspires and venerates Arafat is based on official narratives, monuments and ceremonies, on different memories groups that complement each other, in informal oral communication between generations and in the cohort experience - it is not about the aggregation of individual emotions of veneration. Although emotions have in in general, intra and interpersonal functions, collective emotions have effects on the social sphere and not only in the personal - in the political culture of the nation. A collective emotion, which is obviously instantiated in real individuals and not presupposes a supra-individual ontology, implies that: a) a topic or is evaluated as relevant to “Us”; b) that we exist as an entity (a theory of mind collective or folk psychology that affirms the existence of a group as an entity); c) that we have the intention and the shared commitment to do something (Gilbert, 2014; von Scheve & Salmela, 2014). d) Emotion is shared or felt regularly in social episodes by an important part of the people. It reflects how people think most people feel about their endo-group situation; how “We” Palestinian as an entity feel about Palestinians and commit “us” to an action tendency- regardless of how I feel. e) The emotion arises in and is important in communication, but is also a product non-verbal interactions - including silence. f) the emotion is distributed; exist outside of individuals, in objective cultural forms such as language, texts monuments, works of art etc. There are posters, figures, songs, narrative on Arafat. g) There are different positions and roles and even different tonalities in a collective emotion A collective episode of worshipping an exemplary hero or martyr implies differences in intensity depending on the role. h) are based on the structure of interactions (e.g. avoidance and inhibition due to possible punishment towards Arafat derogation) or social experiences - they are not only appraisals and explicit verbal labels. i) Emotions are originated from culture and norms, are normative and prescriptive, are imposed on individuals as what is socially desirable - worshipping and sharing Arafat's patriotic spirit is mandatory. People can adhere to a collective emotion without personal experience. The most enthusiastic supporters of collective pride and courage have not fought in the war. j) are based on beliefs and predominant scenarios in a society (they share focus, evaluations and action tendencies, they share collective identity) which sensitize and facilitate the experience of certain emotions in a society (Basabe & Paez, 2017; Gilbert, 2014; von Scheve & salmela,2014).