The Transmission Route Of Group Emotion

Mass incidents are stimulated by social events which always lead to group emotion, and finally the negative group emotion will result in the violent group behaviors. Emotions in group behavior have gone beyond the emotions of individual level. If the individual indentify himself as a particular group menber, and makes the group menbership as part of the psychological self. When the group-related event happens, the individual value it as self-event, the emotion arise that time is the group emotion(Smith,2007).In this study, we consider this level of group emtion as the individual-level of group emotion,which is still the personal valuation of incidents involving groups of emotions.This study proposes a new concept of group emotion from a more general group view.When people have formed the individual-level of group emotion, they want to share with other group membersAfter fullly communication, the majority of the group members have shown a consistent emotion. This is the truly group emtion in group level.The participants are335high school students selected from two high schools of Fujian Province and Beijing.The study simulate the natural environment of emotion sharing.The emotion spreading route is set of three different models:tree shape route, radial shape and mixed-shape, to explore the spreading route of group emotion and the characteristics in the formation process.The results of Study I show that in the the value recognition conditions, whether positive groups emotions or negative group emotions, tree shape is the most effective spreading route, which shows the different characteristics of spreading process from the information. Under the conditions of group identity, not restricting the means of communication, group members are more likely to choose to communicate with some friends,which implies the tree shape.The study II found that the individual emotional could be the baseline levels of group emotion, which adjusts the impact of group identity. Value identity can adjust the individual emotional willingness to spread the group emotion. After introducting the spread motivation (share motive and profit motive), we can see that the profit motive can adjust the effect of organizational identity.Group emotion is one of the important variables explaining the group behavior tendency. This study attempts to explain the occurrence and development of mass incidents, from the view of the group emotion, clarify the psychological mechanism of mass incidents, establish the early warning mechanism and help conflict resolution and group emotional rational recovery.