How We Feel

Abstract

AbstractPeople often talk as if groups have emotions of various sorts, as in “The team is so excited!” This chapter argues for a particular understanding of such statements. First, it disengages the question from assumptions about emotions that are derived from the individual as opposed to the collective case, including the assumption that having an emotion is in whole or in part to experience a particular feeling, such as a thrill of excitement. Then, starting with standard reactions people have in contexts where a given collective emotion is presumed to exist, it offers an account of collective emotions generally as constituted by joint commitments, and discusses their role in the life of groups and their connection with the emotions of individual group members.