Collective emotional dynamics: Perspectives for marketing

Abstract

This article focuses on the emotional dynamics at work in a collective experience. It thus fills a gap in research on emotions in the field of marketing, where emotions are usually tackled from an individual perspective. Its contribution is twofold. First, it draws on a review of the existing literature in psychology, social psychology, and sociology in order to identify, define, and characterize the main concepts related to emotions when they are experienced in a collective context. It also builds on this review by distinguishing the processes of emotional transfer from the collective emotional states that result from these transfers. Second, this article shows that the existing marketing literature almost exclusively addresses these topics through the lens of the buyer–seller dyadic relationship. Finally, it proposes further avenues of research that are focused on integrating collective emotional dynamics into marketing research.