Together we cry: Social motives and preferences for group-based sadness

Abstract

Group-based emotions play an important role in helping people feel that they belong to their group. People are motivated to belong, but does this mean that they actively try to experience group-based emotions to increase their sense of belonging? In this investigation, we propose that people may be motivated to experience even group-based emotions that are typically considered unpleasant to satisfy their need to belong. To test this hypothesis, we examined people's preferences for group-based sadness in the context of the Israeli National Memorial Day. In two correlational (Studies 1a and 1b) and two experimental (Studies 2 and 3) studies, we demonstrate that people with a stronger need to belong have a stronger preference to experience group-based sadness. This effect was mediated by the expectation that experiencing sadness would be socially beneficial (Studies 1 and 2). We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding motivated emotion regulation and intergroup relations.

Keywords:

• Emotion regulation
• Motivation
• Social belonging
• Group-based emotions

Acknowledgements

We thank the Harry and Sylvia Hoffman Leadership and Responsibility Program as well as the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations for their support of the first author. We also thank Yelena Bura, Meyer Ittah and Sarah Brennan for their assistance in collecting the data for Study 2.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Four additional participants were excluded from the analyses because they were not Jewish.

² Twenty-two additional participants were excluded from the analyses, because they were not Jewish.

³ In Israel, Memorial Day and Independence Day are commemorated sequentially. In recent years, voices in the Israeli society have called for the separation of these days to allow the bereaved families to celebrate Independence Day as well.

⁴ Ten additional participants were excluded from the analyses for the following reasons: three were under-aged, three were not Jewish and four were not Israeli.

⁵ We omitted one participant from the analysis because his score on this item was more than 2.5 SDs from the mean.

⁶ To minimize the possibility of carry-over effects, in this study we did not assess the perceived utility of sadness.

⁷ Six participants were omitted from the analysis either because they were not Jewish, were more than 2.5 SDs from the mean score or came from bereaved families and therefore for them, Memorial Day carries a unique personal meaning that may or may not be associated with their group membership.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German-Israeli Foundation [grant I-324-105.1-2012], granted to the second and last authors.