Questions to reflect on
- Why does a stadium, concert, or convention feel different from experiencing the same event at home alone?
- Why can I suddenly feel much more strongly connected when I’m among thousands of people?
- Why do people find it easier to sing along, applaud, or react when others do the same?
- Can the atmosphere of a group intensify my own emotion without that feeling being fake?
- Why does criticism of my group sometimes feel almost like criticism of myself?
- Why can leaving a group hurt so much more than simply changing my mind?
- Can former members develop a strong group identity again?
- And how do I stay myself while also needing to belong somewhere?
What is group identity?
People don’t just have a personal identity:
“Who am I?”
but also social identities:
“Which groups do I belong to?”
These can be very different groups:
family,
friend group,
football club,
profession,
religion,
music scene,
nationality,
student association,
company,
military unit,
or a community built around a shared experience.
Within Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s Social Identity Theory, the idea is that part of our self-image can come from the groups we identify with. Later, Self-Categorization Theory further developed how, in certain situations, people can experience themselves less as a unique individual and more as a member of a relevant group.
PERSONAL IDENTITY
“This is me”
SOCIAL IDENTITY
“This is us”
“These are my people”Which identity comes to the forefront can change from one situation to another.
At home you may mainly be:
mother,
partner,
friend,
or individual.
In a football stadium, what may suddenly matter most is:
“We are supporters of this club.”
At a religious convention:
“We share this faith.”
At a festival:
“We love this music and are experiencing it together.”
A group is more than just many people together
Not every collection of people forms one psychological group.
A thousand people at a train station do not necessarily feel connected to one another.
But when people feel:
“We belong together”
something different emerges.
Research on mass gatherings therefore distinguishes between a physical crowd and a psychological crowd: in the latter, participants experience a shared social identity. That shared identity can influence trust, cooperation, closeness, emotions, and behavior.
MANY PEOPLE TOGETHER
does not yet have to be a
psychological group
SHARED IDENTITY
“we belong together”
can strongly change
the experienceYou don’t suddenly become a different person in a group
Older ideas about crowds sometimes assumed that in a mass, people simply lost their individuality, rationality, or self-control.
Modern crowd psychology considers that view too simplistic.
The social-identity approach instead says that people in a group do not stop having an identity. The relevant identity can change.
Instead of:
“What do I personally think?”
it may temporarily become stronger:
“What do we think and do here?”
Not:
“My personality
disappears”
Rather:
“My group identity
is more important
right now”That is a big difference.
Group behavior is therefore not automatically irrational or mindless.
It can actually closely match the norms and values people associate with that specific group.
Imagine: you’re watching a World Cup final
You’re sitting alone on the couch at home.
Your favorite team scores.
You’re happy.
Maybe you shout for a moment.
Now imagine the same match in a stadium with tens of thousands of fans.
Around you:
people stand up,
sing,
jump,
cheer,
hug each other,
react at the same time.
The event on the field may be identical.
Your experience does not have to be.
THE SAME GOAL
at home alone
↓
personal emotion
among thousands
of fellow supporters
↓
personal emotion
+
shared attention
+
shared identity
+
others’ reactionsResearch on crowds and sport supports the broader idea that shared social identity is linked to how people experience emotions in a group setting.
Why can the emotion become stronger?
Several psychological processes can be at work at the same time.
That’s why I wouldn’t simply call everything emotional contagion.
Some relevant processes are:
SOCIAL IDENTITY
“These are my people”
EMOTIONAL CONTAGION
Reactions of others
can influence my own
emotion
SOCIAL REINFORCEMENT
Reactions are confirmed
and strengthened by others
CONFORMITY
What others do can
influence what I myself do
COLLECTIVE EFFERVESCENCE
An intense shared
emotional experience
during a meetingThey can occur at the same time, but they do not mean exactly the same thing.
What is emotional contagion?
Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson described emotional contagion as the process by which people can adopt or synchronize the expressions, voices, postures, and movements of others, after which their emotional state can also be affected.
Their classic work brought together research from multiple disciplines on this topic.
A simple example:
Someone laughs
↓
others react
↓
more shared laughterOr:
tension in a group
↓
others notice that
tension
↓
their own tension
may increaseThis does not mean that emotions jump mechanically from person to person like a virus.
People interpret one another, respond to the same event, and often share the same expectations and identity.
Why do people laugh harder when others laugh?
Maybe because others are laughing.
But possibly also because:
the joke seems funnier,
it feels socially safe to laugh along,
the sharedness adds enjoyment,
or everyone is paying attention to the same stimulus at the same time.
OTHERS LAUGHING
can mean:
“this is funny”
“this is the moment to respond”
“we are experiencing this together”The same visible reaction can therefore have multiple psychological causes.
Collective effervescence: together can feel like more than alone
For large shared events, there is another interesting concept: collective effervescence.
This refers to an intense shared emotional arousal and a sense of togetherness that can arise during rituals, celebrations, meetings, or other collective events, for example.
A large meta-analysis of 50 datasets with a total of more than 180,000 participants found that such shared experiences were strongly associated with, among other things, individual emotion, sense of community, and group identification.
SHARED ATTENTION
+
SHARED IDENTITY
+
RESPONDING TOGETHER
↓
stronger sense
of:
“we”
“together”
“this means something”This can occur at:
a concert,
a sports match,
a religious ritual,
a festival,
a memorial service,
or another large gathering.
So the phenomenon is not specifically religious.
The experience can be completely genuine
This point is essential for your article.
Suppose someone says after a convention:
“This was beautiful. I felt incredibly connected.”
The fact that the group may have amplified that emotion does not mean:
“So the feeling was fake.”
GROUP AMPLIFIES
MY EMOTION
≠
MY EMOTION
WAS NOT REALA concert can genuinely move someone.
A stadium can genuinely feel euphoric.
A religious convention can genuinely evoke hope, love, faith, or connection.
Psychology does not have to take anything away from that.
It can only add:
“The social environment may have been part of why the experience felt so intense.”
An excellent research question
That is why I think your original question is actually very strong:
Would you have felt exactly the same if you had heard the same message all by yourself at home?
That is not an accusation.
It is not proof that the speaker or organization ‘caused’ the emotion.
It is a psychological comparison.
THE SAME MESSAGE
alone at home
versus
among thousands of people
who are listening, singing,
and respondingIf the experience is different, that does not mean one experience is false.
It shows that context is part of our experience.
Social identity can shape emotions
When people identify with a group, they do not only respond to what happens to them personally.
They can also react emotionally to what happens to their group.
A victory by a football club can feel like:
“We won.”
Even though you were not on the field yourself.
An attack on the group can feel personal.
A compliment to the group can evoke pride.
Research on shared reality and social identity describes how attitudes, feelings, and emotions within groups can be shaped in part by shared group norms and meanings.
“THEY are criticizing
our group”
can feel like:
“THEY are criticizing
something that belongs to ME”That helps explain why discussions about groups can sometimes become much more emotional than discussions about neutral topics.
Solomon Asch: what happens when almost everyone says something different?
One of the most famous studies on social influence is by Solomon Asch.
Participants had to judge which of three lines was the same length as a standard line.
The task was simple.
But several of the other people present were confederates of the researcher and, on certain rounds, gave the same clearly wrong answer.
Asch then investigated whether the real participant would stick to their own judgment or go along with the majority.
I SEE:
line A
THE WHOLE GROUP SAYS:
line B
QUESTION:
do I trust
my own judgment?The experiments showed that an unanimous majority could influence some people’s judgment.
But an important nuance is that participants did not simply always go along.
Asch specifically studied both conformity and independence. His work therefore does not show that groups automatically make people believe any random judgment.
Why would someone go along?
Possible reasons could differ.
Someone might think:
“Maybe I really am seeing it wrong.”
That resembles informational social influence.
Or:
“I can see the group is wrong, but I don’t want to be the one who stands out.”
That is more like normative social influence.
INFORMATIONAL
“Maybe the group
knows something
I don’t know”
NORMATIVE
“I don’t want to
fall outside the group”In everyday life, both processes can play a role at the same time.
Asch does not prove that every group ‘controls’ people
The Asch experiments are sometimes used as:
“See, people always follow the crowd.”
That goes too far.
Influence changed when the social conditions changed, and Asch was specifically studying the conditions under which people remained independent or conformed.
A better lesson is:
The opinions of others
can influence our judgment
but
that influence is not
always the same
and is not unlimitedHenri Tajfel: how little is sometimes needed for an ‘us’?
Tajfel and colleagues carried out another famous series of experiments.
Boys were assigned to groups based on fairly minimal or meaningless categories.
No long shared history and no existing conflict were needed.
When participants then had to divide rewards among anonymous group members, they favored their own group on average.
That was striking:
A small categorization
“group A”
versus
“group B”
↓
could already influence
how people divided
resourcesBut nuance is needed here too.
The research did not prove that people immediately feel a deep emotional bond because of any random color label.
It mainly showed that even minimal social categorization can be enough for in-group preference to emerge in behavior.
From category to identity
In everyday life, groups are often much more meaningful than Tajfel’s minimal groups.
Think of:
family,
religion,
nationality,
occupation,
a football club,
or a community in which you live for decades.
That adds extra layers:
group
+
shared history
+
friends
+
rituals
+
language
+
memories
+
values
↓
strong social identityThen:
“These are my people”
means much more than just a random category.
Muzafer Sherif: groups can develop rivalry and cooperation
In the well-known Robbers Cave Experiment, Muzafer Sherif and colleagues studied group formation, intergroup conflict, and cooperation among boys at a summer camp.
Two groups developed their own group life. Competition between the groups was accompanied by hostility and negative stereotypes. Later, shared goals that both groups had to work on together helped reduce the conflict.
US
versus
THEM
+
competition
↓
more conflict
SHARED GOAL
for which both
groups are needed
↓
more cooperationIt is a classic and historically influential study, but it is still just one experimental context from the 1950s. So we should not treat it as an exact blueprint for every modern group.
Group identity does not have to be negative at all
Strong groups can give people a lot:
connection,
friendship,
support,
meaning,
trust,
practical help,
a sense of belonging somewhere.
Research into mass gatherings even shows that shared identity can lead fellow attendees to be experienced as a source of social support, which under certain conditions is associated with well-being and a greater sense of safety.
“THESE ARE MY PEOPLE”
can mean:
I belong
I am understood
I receive support
I am not aloneSo it would be wrong to describe group identity only as danger or peer pressure.
But a strong “we” can also create boundaries
When we becomes important, the possibility of:
them almost automatically arises.
That does not mean that every group becomes hostile toward outsiders.
But groups can emphasize differences:
we do it this way;
they do it differently;
this belongs to us;
that does not belong to us.
WE
shared identity
shared norms
shared language
THEY
people who do not
belong to that categoryTajfel’s work showed precisely that even minimal categorization could be enough for in-group preference when distributing resources.
Group norms also tell us how “we” behave
Every meaningful group develops norms.
At a football match, singing loudly may be normal.
In a library, it is not.
At a classical concert, the audience waits until a certain moment to applaud.
At a festival, dancing is normal.
Within a religious gathering, other behaviors and forms of participation may be customary.
THE SAME PERSON
stadium:
singing and jumping
library:
being quiet
work:
speaking professionally
home:
very different behaviorThat does not mean someone is “fake”.
People continually adapt their behavior to different social contexts.
Why do people applaud along?
Suppose a talk ends.
One person starts clapping.
Then dozens.
Then the whole room.
Why do you clap?
Maybe:
because you genuinely enjoyed the talk;
to show appreciation;
because applauding is the social norm here;
because the energy in the room carries you along;
or some combination of these.
APPLAUSE
can mean:
“i liked this”
and
“this is what we
do together here”So you do not have to choose between:
“everyone means it entirely individually”
and:
“everyone is just going along with it.”
Human behavior can be both personal and socially influenced at the same time.
How might this be recognizable among Jehovah’s Witnesses?
According to JW.org, Jehovah’s Witnesses meet twice a week. Most meetings begin and end with a song and prayer, and those present may voluntarily participate in class discussions.
In addition, conventions are organized every year. The current 2026 convention program includes, among other things, songs, talks, music videos, and video series.
Psychologically, then, these are not only moments when someone receives information.
They are also social gatherings in which people:
listen together,
sing together,
meet one another,
recognize the same symbols and language,
and experience a shared religious identity.
CONTENT
talk
Bible text
video
SOCIAL CONTEXT
present together
singing together
shared identity
friends
family
communityBoth can be part of the same experience.
A convention can genuinely feel very special
JW publications themselves describe conventions as important moments of brotherhood and strong emotion. Historical reports on JW.org, for example, describe prolonged applause, communal singing, and intense joy at large conventions.
In itself, that fits well with what general psychology says about collective gatherings: shared identity can go together with strong positive emotions and connectedness.
That does not mean:
“So the religious message is true.”
But neither does it mean:
“So the religious experience was artificial.”
Psychology can only say:
“The group context may help contribute to the intensity of the experience.”
So I would phrase your convention example a bit more precisely
Not:
Everyone smiles
Everyone nods
Everyone says:
“What a wonderful talk”
so the group
makes you feel the sameThat is too absolute.
Better:
Many people listen
to the same talk
you hear reactions
around you
you sing together
you meet people
with the same faith
after a part
there is applause
↓
the social atmosphere
can strengthen
your own experienceAnd then your strong question:
“Would the same talk in complete isolation have had exactly the same emotional impact on me?”
That is an open research question, not a conclusion.
Maybe you just really thought the talk was beautiful
That needs to be stated explicitly.
Group influence and personal conviction do not exclude each other.
I THOUGHT THE TALK
WAS GENUINELY BEAUTIFUL
and
THE HALL MADE
THE EXPERIENCE MORE INTENSEBoth can be true at the same time.
The same applies at a concert:
“I truly love this artist.”
and:
“With 20,000 other people, it felt much more intense.”
No one would need to conclude from that that the love for the music was fake.
What happens when the group becomes part of your identity?
Over time, a group can become more than just an activity.
Not:
“I go to this church.”
but:
“I am a member of this faith community.”
Not:
“I support this club.”
but:
“We are Ajax/Feyenoord/…”
Not:
“I work for this company.”
but:
“We are that kind of organization.”
I PARTICIPATE
↓
I BELONG
↓
THESE ARE MY PEOPLE
↓
THIS GROUP IS
PART OF WHO I AMThat is exactly why group identity can be so powerful.
Why can leaving hurt so much?
When a group is strongly intertwined with identity, leaving may mean losing more than just a belief or activity.
You may also lose:
a daily social world,
friends,
habits,
rituals,
language,
future images,
status,
memories,
and an answer to:
“Where do I belong?”
That is why, after a group breakup, someone may think:
“I no longer know who my people are.”
That is psychologically understandable from social identity models: group memberships can become part of the self-concept and a source of social support and meaning.
“You leave your tribe” — as a metaphor
Your wording:
“You literally leave your tribe.”
would be something I’d adjust slightly.
Literally is too strong scientifically.
But as a metaphor, it is powerful:
You are not only leaving
a belief
you may feel like you are leaving
your social home
or ‘tribe’For someone who had almost all friends, family contact, rituals, and future images within one community, that experience can be especially profound.
Former Jehovah’s Witnesses can also form a new group identity
This mechanism does not stop once someone leaves a religious group.
A former member may find new belonging with:
other ex-JWs,
an online forum,
activists,
a therapy group,
a new religious community,
or a circle of friends.
That can be very valuable.
“Finally, people understand what I’ve been through.”
But the same general group processes still exist:
WE understand it
WE have been through this
THEY still don’t see itThat does not have to be problematic.
It can still be useful to ask:
“Is there room for disagreement within my new group too?”
So an ex-JW group is not automatically more objective
Someone may think:
“Now I’m out of the group, so group influence no longer plays a role.”
But every human being continues to form social identities.
Critics too can:
validate one another,
start using the same language,
share the same stories a lot,
develop shared emotions,
and experience strong in-group connectedness.
OLD GROUP
has group processes
and
NEW GROUP
can have group processesThe psychological mechanisms do not take sides.
Group identity can actually support independent thinking
Groups do not necessarily reduce autonomy either.
A healthy group can say:
“You belong here, even if you think differently about something.”
It can share information, encourage discussion, and provide support when someone has a dissenting view.
Shared identity can also increase trust, cooperation, and mutual help.
So an important question is:
CAN I:
belong
and
be different?The more room there is for that, the less belonging has to depend on full agreement.
When does group identity become restrictive?
Not when people like the same things.
Not when they sing together.
Not when they are proud of their group.
It becomes more interesting when:
belonging
↓
becoming dependent on
not doubting
not deviating
not contradicting
not falling outside the normThen social costs can start to weigh more heavily in what someone dares to say or investigate.
But even then, the concrete group and situation have to be considered; the concept of group identity alone proves nothing about coercion or manipulation.
How do I know what I feel myself and what the group adds?
It probably isn’t possible to separate them completely.
We are social beings.
Even when you are alone, you carry the language, norms, and memories of other people with you.
But you can compare.
For example:
THE MESSAGE
What do I think of
the content itself?
THE GROUP
What does the atmosphere
do to my emotions?
MY IDENTITY
What does it mean to me
to belong to these people?None of these three has to be wrong.
The “alone-at-home test”
I think your idea is so good that I would make it a regular exercise.
Imagine:
THE SAME SPEAKER
THE SAME TALK
THE SAME WORDSSituation A:
alone at home
headphones on
no one respondsSituation B:
large hall
thousands of people
group singing
others react
applause at the endThen ask:
Would I find the same content just as convincing?
Would I feel the same emotion?
Which parts would stay the same?
Which would likely change?
The goal is not to say that situation B is worse.
Maybe togetherness actually makes something more beautiful.
The goal is to see that:
content and social context can both influence our experience.
A stadium doesn’t make football fake
This may be the best comparison for a current Jehovah’s Witness.
If someone says:
“Football fans are influenced by the atmosphere in the stadium.”
almost no one would conclude from that:
“So they don’t actually like football.”
STADIUM ATMOSPHERE
enhances the experience of football
≠
love of football is fakeIn the same way:
CONVENTION ATMOSPHERE
can enhance the religious experience
≠
religious feelings
are fakePsychology describes a layer of the experience.
Not the full truth about its meaning.
What can you do with this?
You don’t have to unlearn group identity.
The ability to belong somewhere is an important part of human social functioning.
What you can do is consciously examine:
Which groups are important to me?
What do they give me?
What norms come with them?
Which of those do I endorse myself?
Can I ask questions within this group?
Can I deviate without immediately losing my place?
Do I find something convincing because of the argument, because of the speaker, or also because everyone around me agrees?
How do I react when someone criticizes my group?
Does that feel like criticism of an idea or an attack on myself?
Can I recognize positive experiences from a group without having to endorse all its beliefs?
Can I recognize negative experiences without deciding that everything within the group was negative?
A simple framework:
1. CONTENT
What is being said?
2. EMOTION
What do I feel?
3. GROUP
What are others doing?
4. IDENTITY
What does belonging
mean to me?
5. JUDGMENT
What do I myself think
of the content?Questions to reflect on
Which groups form an important part of my identity?
When do I feel most strongly: “these are my people”?
Which emotions become stronger when I am with that group?
Do I feel differently at a concert, sports game, convention, or meeting than when I experience the same content alone?
Which group norms do I automatically adopt?
When do I clap, laugh, or go along because I genuinely feel it — and when might the group be playing a role?
Can it be both at the same time?
How do I react when someone criticizes my group?
Can I distinguish between “this person is criticizing a belief” and “this person is rejecting me”?
Can I disagree within my group without fearing that I will lose my sense of belonging?
After leaving a group, did I perhaps quickly look for a new group that gave me a strong sense of “we” again?
Do I judge my old and my new group by the same critical standard?
What valuable things has my group membership given me?
Which parts of my identity also exist outside that group?
And maybe your most beautiful question:
Suppose...
I hear exactly
the same words
once
completely alone
and once
among thousands of
enthusiastic people
would I experience
exactly the same thing?There is no required answer.
But just asking the question helps distinguish what comes from the message, what comes from yourself, and what the shared experience adds.
Summary
Group identity means that part of our self-image can become tied to the groups we count ourselves as belonging to. Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory describe how an “I” in certain situations can also become a psychological “we”.
That does not happen only within religion.
It can be seen in:
sports,
concerts,
festivals,
companies,
student associations,
military units,
religious meetings
and all kinds of other communities.
Strong shared identity can go together with support, trust, cooperation, and intense positive emotions. Research into collective gatherings and collective effervescence shows that togetherness can strongly intensify emotional experience and the sense of connection.
Asch showed that, under certain conditions, the opinion of a unanimous majority can even influence simple judgments, but his research also showed independence.
Tajfel showed that even minimal group categorization was enough to produce, on average, more favoring of one’s own group when distributing rewards.
Sherif showed in the Robbers Cave study how group formation and competition could intensify intergroup conflict, and how shared goals could promote cooperation.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, meetings and conventions can therefore at the same time be:
religious instruction,
a faith experience,
friendship,
and a powerful social group experience.
That does not make the experience fake.
It only means:
Our emotions
do not come solely
“from within”
they also arise
in interaction with
other people
shared meanings
and the groups
we belong toAnd precisely because of that, leaving a deeply meaningful group can be much more than:
“I believe something else.”
It can also mean:
“Who am I without this ‘we’ — and where do I belong now?”
Sources and further reading
Henri Tajfel, M.G. Billig, R.P. Bundy & Claude Flament (1971), Social Categorization and Intergroup Behaviour. Classic minimal-group experiments in which participants favored their own group when dividing real rewards, even though the grouping was largely meaningless and there was no pre-existing hostility between the groups.
Henri Tajfel (1970), Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination. Early overview of experiments showing that minimal group categorization can already influence intergroup behavior.
Matthew J. Hornsey (2008), Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory: A Historical Review. Overview of the development, core ideas, interpretations, and limitations of the social identity approach.
Solomon E. Asch (1956), Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority. Classic experimental research on independence and conformity when one participant stands against a unanimous majority.
Elaine Hatfield, John T. Cacioppo & Richard L. Rapson (1994), Emotional Contagion. Classic work on how emotions and expressive behavior can become aligned and influence one another between people.
Páez and colleagues / meta-analysis of collective effervescence. Meta-analytic integration of 50 datasets with over 180,000 participants on intense shared emotional experiences in collective gatherings and their relationship to emotion, shared connectedness, and social identity.
Nick Hopkins et al. (2016), Explaining Effervescence: Investigating the Relationship Between Shared Social Identity and Positive Experience in Crowds. Study of 416 participants at a large religious gathering in which perceived shared identity was associated with positive experience through, among other things, connectedness with other participants and being able to experience the shared identity.
Muzafer Sherif et al., Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment. Classic field experiment on group formation, competition, intergroup conflict, and cooperation around shared goals.
John Drury (2026), The Psychology of Crowd Behavior, Annual Review of Psychology. Current overview of contemporary crowd research from the social identity approach.
Jehovah’s Witnesses – Meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Official description of the two weekly meetings, group songs, and voluntary participation in discussions.
Jehovah’s Witnesses – 2026 Convention Program: Happily Forever After. Current official program with talks, songs, music videos, and joint convention segments.
