{PSOCIAL}

Collective gatherings and rituals have long been understood as privileged social contexts in which shared attention, coordinated action, and emotional convergence generate powerful psychological and social effects. In the classical Durkheimian framework, collective assemblies produce collective effervescence, a state of heightened shared emotional intensity through which participants experience a sense of unity and connection to something larger than themselves. Recent theoretical and empirical developments have reformulated this perspective into a sequential process model of collective gatherings, specifying the mechanisms through which these transformative effects emerge (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025).

According to this sequential model, collective gatherings unfold through a set of interrelated stages. First, co-presence and mutual awareness facilitate situated social identification with co-participants, as individuals perceive themselves as part of a shared social category in the immediate context. Second, gatherings promote shared attention and behavioral synchrony, as participants focus on the same symbols, events, or actions and engage in coordinated or simultaneous behavior. Third, these processes can lead to identity fusion, or a perceived overlap between personal and collective identity, characterized by a strong relational bond with the group. Fourth, synchronized interaction and shared focus amplify emotional experience, producing perceived emotional synchrony and intense shared emotions, including self-transcendent emotions. Finally, collective encounters may culminate in a transformation of self-experience through contact with moral values, beliefs, and ideals, especially when these are oriented toward self-transcendence (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025- see figure 1).

Within this framework, collective effervescence is defined as a state of high shared emotional activation emerging from coordinated collective interaction. It is not itself a specific emotion but an emergent affective condition characterized by intensity, unity, and mutual emotional amplification. Collective effervescence can be associated with different emotional contents—joy in celebrations, sadness in funerals, anger in demonstrations, or pride in commemorations—depending on the symbolic and situational features of the gathering. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that experiences of collective effervescence are reliably associated with self-transcendent beliefs and values, as well as with self-transcendent emotions such as awe and kama muta, suggesting that these collective emotional states play a key role in orienting participants beyond self-focus toward broader moral and social concerns (Pizarro et al., 2021; Pizarro et al., 2022).

Not all intense shared emotions experienced in collective gatherings are self-transcendent in nature. Collective effervescence refers to a state of high emotional arousal and shared intensity, but the emotional content of this state may vary widely and is not necessarily oriented toward transcendence. Collective encounters may elicit strongly shared basic emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, or pride, depending on the type of ritual or event, without necessarily producing a shift beyond self-centered concerns. In contrast, self-transcendent emotions are defined by their capacity to reduce self-focus, counteract self-absorption and narcissistic orientation, and connect individuals with broader, more inclusive social and moral frames of reference (Pizarro et al., 2021).

Among the most studied self-transcendent emotions in collective contexts are awe, kama muta, and elevation. Awe is typically elicited by experiences of perceived vastness and moral or symbolic greatness, and is associated with feelings of smallness of the self, cognitive accommodation, and a sense of being connected to a larger whole (Keltner, 2023, 2024). Empirical and theoretical work indicates that awe can be triggered not only by nature or artistic and symbolic grandeur, but also by collective gatherings themselves, particularly when participants experience the perceived power, unity, and emotional magnitude of the group encounter (Keltner, 2024; Rimé & Páez, 2023). During episodes of awe, individuals report altered time perception, enhanced meaning in life, and a sense of participation in something greater than the individual self.

Kama muta, conceptualized as the emotion of being suddenly moved by intensified communal sharing or love, is another key self-transcendent emotion frequently evoked in ritual and collective settings. It arises when individuals witness or experience a sudden intensification of horizontal, egalitarian social bonds and is characterized by subjective feelings of being moved, physiological responses such as tears, chills, or warmth in the chest, and motivational tendencies toward affiliation and prosocial behavior (Fiske et al., 2019). Collective rituals and gatherings can evoke kama muta in both participants and observers when they highlight solidarity, mutual care, and shared devotion.

Relatedly, elevation and closely associated moral inspiration responses are elicited by witnessing acts of moral beauty, courage, or generosity, and are conceptually and empirically linked to awe and kama muta within the broader family of self-transcendent emotions (Pizarro et al., 2021). Measurement approaches based on adapted versions of the Differential Emotions Scale and related instruments capture these experiences through indicators of feeling moved, inspired, uplifted, loving, and hopeful in collective encounters (Fredrickson, 2009, adapted in Wlodarczyk et al., 2020; da Costa et al., 2023).

Meta-analytic evidence shows that collective effervescence is strongly associated with self-transcendent emotions, including awe and kama muta, and with self-transcendent values such as universalism and benevolence (Pizarro et al., 2022). These emotions, in turn, are linked to broader identification targets and prosocial motivations. Across studies, self-transcendent emotions predict increased identification with humanity and stronger motivations to help others beyond parochial group boundaries, supporting the idea that emotionally intense collective experiences can contribute to moral expansion and inclusive social orientation (Pizarro et al., 2021; Cusi et al., 2022)

A central ambivalence of collective rituals is that, while they are highly effective in strengthening social bonds and shared meaning, they frequently do so in parochial ways. Many rituals reinforce cohesion within bounded groups—defined by nation, religion, ethnicity, or political identity—while simultaneously sharpening symbolic and emotional boundaries toward outsiders. Classic and contemporary analyses of collective gatherings show that shared attention, synchrony, identity fusion, and emotional amplification can intensify in-group attachment and collective efficacy, but these same mechanisms may also support exclusionary dynamics and outgroup rejection when the symbolic frame of the ritual is narrow (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025; da Costa et al., 2023). Thus, collective effervescence is not intrinsically inclusive: its social consequences depend on the scope of the identity and values activated in the ritual context.

From a moral and social perspective, an important challenge is whether collective emotional processes can contribute to an expansion of the moral circle beyond parochial groups. Research on self-transcendent emotions indicates that emotions such as awe, kama muta, and elevation are associated with broader identification targets and greater concern for others in general, rather than only for close in-groups (Pizarro et al., 2021; Pizarro et al., 2022). In this line, identification with all humanity (IWAH) has been proposed and operationalized as an inclusive supra-identity reflecting perceived closeness, concern, and willingness to help people across group boundaries. Empirical studies show that perceived emotional synchrony and self-transcendent emotions experienced in collective encounters are positively associated with IWAH and prosocial orientations that extend beyond parochial targets (Cusi et al., 2022).

However, a merely cognitive categorization—recognizing that “all humans belong to the same species”—is typically insufficient to generate stable inclusive identification and generalized altruism. The evidence reviewed in this line of work suggests that inclusive identity is more likely to emerge when collective experiences are affectively grounded, emotionally intense, and symbolically connected to values and ideals that emphasize common humanity and shared moral worth. Collective encounters characterized by perceived emotional synchrony, transcendence, and value-laden meaning are associated with self-transcendent beliefs, universalism and benevolence values, and broader identification frames (Pizarro et al., 2022; Rimé & Páez, 2023). This supports the view that emotionally structured collective rituals—particularly those of positive valence and low exclusionary content—may function as mechanisms not only of group cohesion, but also of moral expansion toward humanity as a whole (Basabe, 2021; de Rivera, 2018, 2022).

Collective rituals differ not only in emotional intensity and symbolic structure, but also in the breadth of identity and moral concern they activate. Parochial rituals are organized around bounded identities—national, ethnic, political, or religious—and primarily function to reinforce internal cohesion, shared narratives, and loyalty to the in-group, often in contrast with relevant outgroups. As noted in the sequential model of collective gatherings, processes such as social identification with co-participants, synchrony, identity fusion, and perceived emotional synchrony can strengthen solidarity and collective efficacy, but their social consequences depend on the symbolic scope of the values and identities highlighted in the ritual context (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025; da Costa et al., 2023). When rituals emphasize exclusive identities and boundary marking, collective effervescence may consolidate parochial belonging rather than broaden moral inclusion.

By contrast, inclusive rituals are collective gatherings organized around themes, symbols, and values that stress common humanity, shared vulnerability, or supra-group moral ideals. These rituals are oriented toward widening the circle of belonging and moral concern, and toward fostering affective bonds that are not restricted to a single closed category. Proposals for inclusive ritualization have emphasized themes such as the shared dependence of all humans on nature, the Earth, and common planetary goods, suggesting that global symbolic themes can serve as anchors for emotionally grounded supra-identities. Earth Day, currently observed in more than 190 countries, has been highlighted as a prototypical case of a potential global ritual centered on shared planetary belonging and care, especially when framed as a value-oriented and symbolically sacred collective gathering (de Rivera, 2018, 2022).

Other examples include ecumenical and supra-religious rituals that bring together participants across confessional boundaries and promote shared moral identity beyond doctrinal divisions. Documented cases include joint religious ceremonies and interfaith collective actions that construct a shared symbolic frame across Catholic, Evangelical, and Muslim communities, emphasizing common ethical commitments over sectarian identity (de Rivera, 2018, 2022). Likewise, collective responses to major disasters often give rise to solidarity rituals that temporarily suspend group boundaries and highlight shared human vulnerability and gratitude. Public applause rituals for healthcare workers, firefighters, and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic are examples of ritualized collective expressions of recognition and moral elevation associated with broad, non-parochial solidarity (Zlobina & Dávila, 2022).

Inclusive ritual forms are also found in certain syncretic and intercultural carnivals that symbolically invert or blur social and ethnic hierarchies and celebrate cultural mixture. The Black and White Carnival in Pasto, Colombia, explicitly stages symbolic racial transformation and mutual recognition among Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and mestizo traditions, and has been linked to broader identification frames (Rincón-Unigarro, 2024). Similarly, syncretic religious carnivals in the Andean border region between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru—such as La Tirana—integrate multiple cultural and musical traditions and foster shared participation across ethnic and regional lines (Figueroa et al., 2024). These cases illustrate positive-valence collective rituals that do not strongly emphasize ideological or categorical boundaries and instead foreground shared joy, symbolic equality, and cultural hybridity.

Positive-valence rituals without strong ideological boundary marking are especially relevant for the present research because they combine high emotional intensity with relatively low exclusionary content. Even when they do not explicitly promote universalist ideology, such rituals may support broader inclusion in the self and more generalized prosocial orientations through shared joy, synchrony, and self-transcendent emotional experience. Theoretical and empirical work on collective effervescence and self-transcendent emotions suggests that when emotionally intense gatherings are coupled with inclusive or non-exclusive symbolic frames, they are more likely to contribute to expanded identification and non-parochial altruism (Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022; Basabe, 2021).

Carnivals represent a paradigmatic case of positive-valence collective rituals characterized by shared joy, symbolic equality, and the temporary inversion or suspension of ordinary social roles. As emphasized in cultural and social analyses of ritual celebration, carnival settings promote playful transgression, satire, and role inversion, weakening rigid hierarchies and reinforcing horizontal relations among participants. These celebrations are typically organized around collective enjoyment, aesthetic expression, and bodily synchrony—such as dancing, music, costumes, and coordinated performances—rather than around explicit ideological, national, ethnic, or doctrinal boundaries. In this sense, they constitute collective rituals of positive valence that can generate intense shared emotional experiences without necessarily activating strong us–them distinctions (Basabe, 2021; Rimé & Páez, 2023).

Unlike many political or religious rituals that explicitly reinforce parochial identities, carnivals are usually collective celebrations without clear sociopolitical or doctrinal content, even though satire and social critique may be present in some forms. Their symbolic structure emphasizes shared joy and collective participation, and often questions or temporarily inverts established status orders and social roles. Within the framework of collective effervescence, such positive-valence gatherings can still activate the full sequence of processes described in the Durkheimian model—co-presence identification, synchrony, identity fusion, perceived emotional synchrony, and transformative experience—while being anchored in inclusive, playful, and non-exclusive symbolic frames (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025; da Costa et al., 2023).

Because of this relatively non-parochial structure, carnivals are theoretically expected to support broader inclusion in the self and more generalized forms of prosocial orientation. The working hypothesis derived from the present framework is that collective celebrations centered on shared joy and horizontal participation can reinforce positive attitudes toward others in general, not only toward in-group members, and promote non-parochial altruism. In line with research showing that collective effervescence is associated with self-transcendent emotions and values (Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022), positive-valence rituals such as carnivals may foster inclusive identification—particularly identification with all humanity (IWAH)—through emotionally intense but non-exclusive collective experiences.

This expectation is consistent with prior conceptual and empirical work suggesting that inclusive and prosocial rituals can be appropriated as social resources for cohesion, belonging, solidarity, and meaning in life, especially when they are not strongly organized around exclusionary identity boundaries (Basabe, 2021). The present studies therefore examine carnival and syncretic festive rituals as naturalistic contexts in which collective effervescence and awe may be linked to inclusive identification and generalized altruistic behavior.

Within the sequential model of collective gatherings, collective effervescence (CE) is conceptualized as a state of high shared emotional intensity emerging from co-presence, shared attention, synchrony, identity fusion, and perceived emotional synchrony, culminating in transformative experience linked to values and beliefs—especially when these are self-transcendent (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025). CE itself is not a self-transcendent emotion but an emergent affective state that can be associated with different emotional contents, including joy, sadness, anger, or pride, depending on the ritual context. However, convergent evidence indicates that CE is systematically associated with self-transcendent emotions and values.

Meta-analytic findings show that collective effervescence during gatherings and demonstrations is positively associated with self-transcendent beliefs and values—such as universalism and benevolence—as well as with self-transcendent emotions, including awe and kama muta. Reported effect sizes indicate moderate to strong associations between CE and self-transcendent beliefs and values (around r ≈ .45), and stronger associations between CE and self-transcendent emotions (around r ≈ .58) (Pizarro et al., 2022). These results support the idea that emotionally intense collective encounters tend to co-occur with emotional and axiological orientations that extend concern beyond the individual self and immediate in-group.

Two main self-transcendent emotional pathways are highlighted in the framework used in the present work. First, CE can evoke kama muta, which presupposes episodes of intensified horizontal, egalitarian relations and perceived communal sharing. Collective rituals can generate or make salient sudden intensifications of love, solidarity, and communal bonds, which in turn elicit kama muta, characterized by feeling moved, positive affect, characteristic bodily responses, and prosocial and affiliative action tendencies (Fiske et al., 2019). Second, CE can evoke awe when the collective experience is appraised as involving moral or symbolic vastness and greatness, often linked to vertical relations, moral elevation, or perceived collective power.

Contemporary work on awe explicitly identifies collective gatherings and collective effervescence as major elicitors of awe. Awe is described as arising in response to perceived vastness and richness, including moral beauty and collective greatness, and is associated with self-diminishment, altered time perception, enhanced meaning, and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself (Keltner, 2023, 2024). Collective rituals such as ceremonies, commemorations, and solidarity rituals—such as public applause for health workers during the COVID-19 lockdown—have been described as prototypical contexts in which collective effervescence and moral elevation jointly elicit awe (Keltner, 2024; Zlobina & Dávila, 2022).

Empirical evidence directly links CE and awe with inclusive identity outcomes. A cross-sectional study in Mexico and the Basque Country found that perceived emotional synchrony in collective encounters was positively associated with awe, self-transcendent values and beliefs, prosocial behavior, and identification with all humanity (IWAH) (Cusi et al., 2022). Meta-analytic integration of three ritual studies reported in the present research program shows strong associations between collective effervescence and awe (weighted r ≈ .72), and significant positive correlations of both CE and awe with IWAH (weighted r ≈ .32 and r ≈ .33, respectively). These patterns are consistent across different ritual contexts, including carnivals and syncretic religious festivities.

Based on this convergent theoretical and empirical background, a mediational expectation is proposed: collective effervescence fosters inclusive outcomes—specifically identification with all humanity and non-parochial altruism—through the elicitation of awe and related self-transcendent emotional experiences. Mediational analyses reported for the Spanish carnival data support this pathway, showing that awe predicts IWAH and generalized altruistic behavior while controlling for CE, and that CE predicts these inclusive outcomes indirectly through awe. This CE → Awe → IWAH / non-parochial altruism pathway is therefore treated as the central process model guiding the empirical studies that follow (Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022; Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025).

The present research examines whether positive-valence collective rituals that are not strongly organized around exclusionary ideological, ethnic, national, or religious boundaries can contribute to inclusive identity and non-parochial prosocial outcomes through the emotional processes described in the Durkheimian sequential model of collective gatherings. Specifically, the studies focus on the explanatory processes of collective gatherings and collective effervescence, and on their links with self-transcendent emotions—particularly awe—and inclusive supra-identity, operationalized as identification with all humanity (IWAH). The guiding question, stated in the project framework, is what kinds of collective rituals can help generate a shared imagined community of all humanity that is not merely a cognitive categorization (“we are all human”) but involves an affective bond and a widening of the moral circle (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025; Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022).

To address this question, three empirical studies were conducted in naturalistic ritual contexts characterized by positive emotional valence and relatively low explicit parochial content. These contexts include (a) large-scale carnival celebrations in Spain (2023), (b) the Black and White Carnival in Pasto, Colombia—a mixed-race and intercultural collective ritual emphasizing symbolic equality and cultural hybridity (Rincón-Unigarro, 2024), and (c) the La Tirana syncretic religious dancing ritual in northern Chile, which integrates Andean musical and religious traditions across regional and ethnic lines (Figueroa et al., 2024). Across these contexts, common measures were used to assess the sequential processes of collective gatherings, perceived emotional synchrony and collective effervescence, self-transcendent emotions including awe, and inclusive identification with humanity (IWAH). In the Spanish carnival study, generalized or non-parochial altruism was additionally assessed through a material donation decision using a Dictator Game variant.

Based on the theoretical model and the empirical background summarized above, four core hypotheses guided the analyses. First, collective effervescence experienced in positive-valence collective rituals will be positively associated with awe (H1). Second, both collective effervescence and awe will be positively associated with inclusive identity, measured as identification with all humanity (H2). Third, awe will mediate the relationship between collective effervescence and IWAH, such that collective effervescence will predict inclusive identification indirectly through awe (H3). Fourth, participation in inclusive, positive-valence rituals—particularly carnival contexts—will be associated with non-parochial altruism, operationalized as generalized donation behavior in the Dictator Game in the Spanish sample (H4). Together, the three studies test an integrated process model linking collective effervescence, self-transcendent emotion, and inclusive moral outcomes in natural collective ritual settings (Basabe, 2021; Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022).

The research integrates three field studies conducted in natural collective ritual contexts of positive valence: (a) the 2023 carnivals in Spain, (b) the Black & White Carnival in Pasto, Colombia, and (c) the La Tirana syncretic religious dancing ritual in Chile. Across the three studies, participants reported their lived experience of participation in the ritual or collective gathering shortly after the event. All studies assessed the explanatory processes of collective gatherings derived from the Durkheimian sequential model—co-presence identification, shared attention and behavioral synchrony, identity fusion, perceived emotional synchrony, intense shared emotion, and transformative experience—together with self-transcendent emotions (including awe) and inclusive identity measured as Identification With All Humanity (IWAH). In the Spanish carnival study, an additional behavioral indicator of non-parochial altruism was included using a Dictator Game donation decision. Measures and item wording follow the instruments and formulations specified in the project report.

Across three field studies conducted in collective ritual contexts — carnivals in Spain, the Black and White Carnival in Colombia, and the La Tirana syncretic ritual in Chile — the results consistently support the proposed link between collective gathering processes, self-transcendent emotions, and inclusive forms of identification and altruism. The meta-analytic integration of the three studies showed that collective effervescence during rituals was strongly associated with awe (weighted mean r = .72), and that both collective effervescence and awe were positively associated with identification with all humanity (IWAH), with weighted mean correlations of r = .32 and r = .33 respectively.

These convergent correlations across culturally distinct ritual settings support the idea that high-intensity collective emotional experiences are systematically related to self-transcendent emotional responses and to broader, more inclusive identity orientations. The pattern was observed not only in festive carnivals but also in syncretic religious ritual contexts, suggesting that the association is not limited to a single ritual format but generalizes across different types of positive-valence collective gatherings.

The mediation analyses conducted on the Spanish carnival sample further clarify the underlying process. Using Hayes’s PROCESS model, results confirmed that awe predicted IWAH while controlling for collective effervescence, and that collective effervescence predicted IWAH indirectly through awe. A parallel pattern was observed for non-parochial altruism measured through charitable donation behavior in a dictator game variant: awe predicted donation, the direct effect of collective effervescence was non-significant, and the indirect effect through awe was significant. This supports the proposed mediational chain in which collective effervescence is linked to inclusive outcomes primarily through the elicitation of self-transcendent emotional experience.

Taken together, the findings are consistent with the process model of collective gatherings in which emotionally intense, synchronized collective encounters are associated with self-transcendent emotions and with inclusive identity and altruistic orientations, rather than being limited to parochial in-group bonding alone.

The present findings support the interpretation of collective effervescence as an affective mechanism that contributes to moral expansion when it is embedded in positive-valence collective rituals with low boundary-marking content. Across the three studies, collective effervescence showed consistent positive associations with awe and with identification with all humanity (IWAH), and the mediation analyses indicated that the link between collective effervescence and inclusive outcomes operates primarily through self-transcendent emotional experience—specifically awe. This pattern is directly aligned with the sequential model of collective gatherings, in which intense shared emotional activation is followed by contact with values and ideals and by a transformation of self-experience, particularly when self-transcendent content is salient (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025).

In the theoretical framework summarized in the report, collective effervescence is defined as a state of high emotional intensity and shared activation, but not as a self-transcendent emotion per se. It can be associated with different emotional contents, including joy, sadness, or anger, depending on the ritual context. By contrast, emotions of self-transcendence—such as awe and kama muta—are characterized by reduced self-focus and a shift away from self-centeredness toward connection with something greater than the individual self (Pizarro et al., 2021). The meta-analytic evidence cited in the report indicates that collective effervescence during collective encounters is associated with self-transcendent beliefs and values (r ≈ .45) and with self-transcendent emotions such as awe and kama muta (r ≈ .58) (Pizarro et al., 2022). The current multi-study results are consistent with this broader pattern, showing strong associations between collective effervescence and awe across ritual contexts.

The results are also coherent with recent work highlighting collective gatherings themselves as major elicitors of awe. Awe has been described as arising in response to perceived vastness and moral or symbolic greatness, including moral beauty, courage, and collective unity, and as involving feelings of smallness, expanded meaning, and connection to a larger whole (Keltner, 2023, 2024). The report explicitly notes that collective effervescence—defined as the harmony and shared emotional energy experienced in weddings, funerals, demonstrations, celebrations, and other gatherings—constitutes one of the main eliciting conditions of awe. In line with this view, the present findings show that collective effervescence is strongly correlated with awe across the three ritual settings and that awe, in turn, predicts inclusive identity and generalized altruistic orientation.

Taken together, these results support the claim that emotionally intense collective encounters can function as affective pathways for widening the moral circle when they are not tightly bound to exclusionary group identities. In such contexts, collective effervescence is linked not only to solidarity with co-participants, but also—through awe and related self-transcendent emotions—to broader identification with humanity and to non-parochial prosocial tendencies, consistent with the moral-expansion interpretation proposed in the report’s theoretical framework.

The results reported in the three studies support the central role of awe as the mediating emotional mechanism linking collective effervescence with inclusive identification. In the integrated meta-analytic results across ritual contexts, awe showed a consistent positive association with identification with all humanity (IWAH), with a weighted mean correlation of approximately r = .33, while collective effervescence was also positively associated with IWAH (r ≈ .32). At the same time, the association between collective effervescence and awe was strong across the three settings (weighted r ≈ .72). This pattern is fully consistent with the process sequence proposed in the report: emotionally intense collective encounters are associated with self-transcendent emotions, and these emotions are, in turn, associated with broader and more inclusive identification targets.

The mediation analyses based on the Spanish carnival sample provide direct process evidence for this pathway. Using Hayes’s PROCESS model, the analyses confirmed that awe predicts IWAH while controlling for collective effervescence, and that collective effervescence predicts IWAH indirectly through awe. An analogous pattern was observed for non-parochial altruism measured through charitable donation in the dictator game variant: awe predicted donation behavior, whereas the direct effect of collective effervescence was not significant, and the indirect effect through awe was significant. Thus, in both identity and behavioral outcomes, the effect of collective effervescence operates primarily through the elicitation of awe rather than through a direct pathway.

This mediational role is theoretically coherent with the distinction emphasized in the report between collective effervescence as a state of high shared emotional intensity and self-transcendent emotions as specific emotional responses that reduce self-focus and connect individuals with something greater than themselves (Pizarro et al., 2021). Awe, in particular, is described as arising in response to perceived moral or symbolic vastness and collective greatness, including collective effervescence itself as an eliciting context (Keltner, 2023, 2024). During awe episodes, individuals report feeling small in the presence of something great, experiencing expanded meaning, altered time perception, and a sense of belonging to a larger whole — experiential features that are directly aligned with inclusive identification frames.

The present findings are also consistent with prior cross-sectional evidence showing that perceived emotional synchrony in collective encounters is associated with awe, self-transcendent values and beliefs, prosocial behavior, and identification with humanity (Cusi et al., 2022). Taken together, the convergent correlational, meta-analytic, and mediational results in the report support the interpretation of awe as the key affective bridge between emotionally intense collective rituals and inclusive supra-identity outcomes.

The present report specifically examined positive-valence collective rituals that do not strongly emphasize ethnic, political, national, or religious us–them boundaries, and that therefore have the potential to support broader moral inclusion. In the conceptual framework of the study, many rituals reinforce in-group cohesion together with outgroup exclusion. By contrast, the focal cases analyzed here — carnivals and syncretic collective celebrations — are described as collective gatherings with weak explicit boundary marking and limited ideological polarization, centered on shared joy, symbolic equality, and role inversion. Such rituals were expected to favor more generalized, non-parochial orientations rather than exclusively in-group–directed solidarity.

The three empirical contexts included in the report are explicitly characterized as examples of these more inclusive or weakly parochial ritual forms. The Spain carnival celebrations are described as collective rituals of positive valence without clear sociopolitical content, although satire may be present. The Black and White Carnival in Pasto emphasizes symbolic race inversion and the valuing of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and mestizo cultural legacies. The La Tirana syncretic religious carnival highlights shared Andean musical and ritual culture across national borders. In all three cases, the rituals are presented as collective gatherings that stress shared participation and emotional convergence beyond narrow group divisions.

Consistent with this framing, the results show that collective effervescence and awe experienced during these rituals are positively associated with inclusive identity measured as identification with all humanity (IWAH) across the three studies. Moreover, in the Spanish carnival study, inclusive ritual participation was also linked to non-parochial prosociality measured behaviorally through a dictator game donation to an NGO. The mediation analysis reported in the draft indicates that awe predicts charitable donation while controlling for collective effervescence, that the direct effect of collective effervescence on donation is not significant, and that the indirect effect through awe is significant. Thus, the association between emotionally intense participation in a positive-valence ritual and non-parochial altruistic behavior operates through self-transcendent emotional experience rather than through collective effervescence alone.

In line with the theoretical model summarized in the report, these findings suggest that collective rituals of positive valence and low exclusionary framing can contribute to generalized prosocial orientations through processes of emotional synchrony, collective effervescence, and self-transcendent emotion. Rather than reinforcing only parochial altruism directed toward the in-group, such rituals are empirically associated with inclusive identification and with prosocial tendencies directed beyond immediate group boundaries, when the ritual context emphasizes shared joy, symbolic equality, and common humanity.

The present report makes a set of theoretically focused contributions by integrating Durkheim’s sequential model of collective gatherings with contemporary research on self-transcendent emotions and inclusive supra-identity. First, it provides convergent empirical support for the process model in which collective gatherings operate through a sequence of mechanisms — co-presence identification, shared attention and synchrony, identity fusion, perceived emotional synchrony and intense shared emotion, and finally transformation of self-experience through contact with moral values and beliefs — and shows that this sequence is not limited to parochial cohesion but is also linked to inclusive outcomes when ritual contexts are of positive valence and weak boundary marking (Rimé & Páez, 2023; Páez et al., 2025).

Second, the findings contribute theoretically by clarifying the distinction and relationship between collective effervescence and self-transcendent emotions. In line with the conceptual framework of the report, collective effervescence is treated as a state of high shared emotional intensity rather than as a self-transcendent emotion per se. The results are consistent with prior meta-analytic evidence showing that collective effervescence during gatherings is associated with self-transcendent beliefs and values and with self-transcendent emotions such as awe and kama muta (Pizarro et al., 2022). The present multi-study evidence extends this framework by showing, across three ritual contexts, a strong association between collective effervescence and awe, and by demonstrating that awe statistically mediates the association between collective effervescence and inclusive identification and non-parochial altruism. This specifies the affective pathway through which high-intensity shared emotion is linked to moral expansion (Pizarro et al., 2021, 2022).

Third, the report advances the theoretical discussion of ritual and morality by identifying a class of collective rituals — positive-valence, weakly parochial, and often syncretic or intercultural — that are empirically associated with inclusive identity and generalized prosociality. While much classical and contemporary work emphasizes how rituals reinforce bounded identities and in-group solidarity, the present framework and results highlight that some ritual forms can instead support widening of the moral circle and identification with all humanity. This aligns with proposals that inclusive and prosocial rituals can function as social resources that foster cohesion, belonging, solidarity, and meaning in life, particularly in work aimed at countering social exclusion (Basabe, 2021; de Rivera, 2018, 2022).

Finally, by combining meta-analytic integration across three field studies with process-based mediation evidence, the report contributes a theoretically coherent and empirically grounded model linking collective effervescence, awe, and inclusive moral outcomes. This model connects sociological theory of ritual with social-psychological models of self-transcendent emotion and supra-identity, and frames collective gatherings not only as mechanisms of group bonding, but also as potential affective drivers of inclusive identification and non-parochial prosocial orientation.

The framework and results summarized in this report suggest practical implications for the intentional design and promotion of inclusive collective rituals aimed at widening the moral circle and strengthening identification with all humanity. The central practical implication derived in the draft is that not all rituals have the same social effects: many reinforce cohesion of a bounded “we” together with rejection of others, whereas rituals that emphasize shared humanity, symbolic equality, and common goods are more likely to support inclusive identification and generalized prosocial orientation. Thus, inclusive ritual design should avoid strong ideological, national, ethnic, or religious boundary marking and instead foreground themes and symbols that highlight shared human dependence, vulnerability, and moral worth.

The report explicitly identifies several types of collective rituals with inclusive potential. First, rituals organized around global and supra-human themes — such as the celebration of the Earth, nature, and shared planetary goods — are proposed as candidates for inclusive ritualization. Earth Day is presented as a prototypical example of a global-scale collective ritual that could be further developed as a value-oriented and symbolically sacred gathering centered on the unity of humankind and its ecological interdependence (de Rivera, 2018, 2022). Second, ecumenical and supra-religious rituals that promote shared identity across confessional boundaries — such as joint activities among Catholic, Evangelical, and Muslim communities — are highlighted as practical examples of ritual forms that construct inclusive symbolic frames rather than sectarian ones.

Third, the report notes that collective responses to major disasters often generate solidarity rituals that temporarily suspend group boundaries and are frequently ritualized, such as public applause for health workers, firefighters, and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These practices are described as emotionally powerful, morally elevating, and broadly inclusive, and are empirically linked to emotional synchrony, moral obligation, and preventive and prosocial behaviors (Zlobina & Dávila, 2022). Fourth, certain intercultural and syncretic carnivals — such as the Black and White Carnival and La Tirana — are presented as applied examples of collective rituals that symbolically invert or blur ethnic and status boundaries and emphasize shared participation and cultural hybridity.

A further practical implication emphasized in the draft follows directly from the process model tested in the studies: the inclusive impact of rituals operates through emotional pathways — specifically collective effervescence and self-transcendent emotions such as awe — rather than through cognitive messaging alone. Because the final step in the Durkheimian sequence is the transformation of self-experience through contact with moral values and ideals, especially of self-transcendence, ritual design that seeks inclusive outcomes should actively cultivate conditions for shared emotional intensity, synchrony, and experiences of moral or symbolic vastness. In this sense, inclusive and prosocial rituals can be intentionally appropriated as social resources in community work against exclusion, fostering cohesion, belonging, solidarity, and meaning in life, as explicitly noted in the report (Basabe, 2021).

The limitations noted in the draft concern primarily design, measurement, and scope of generalization. First, the evidence is based mainly on cross-sectional field surveys conducted after participation in collective rituals. Although the mediation analyses are theoretically consistent with the proposed sequential model of collective gatherings — from collective effervescence to awe and from awe to inclusive outcomes — the data are correlational and do not allow firm causal conclusions. The direction of effects cannot be definitively established, and alternative causal orderings or reciprocal influences remain possible.

Second, the central constructs — collective effervescence, perceived emotional synchrony, awe, self-transcendent emotions, and identification with all humanity — were measured through self-report scales. While the draft reports satisfactory to high reliability for the main measures and relies on previously validated instruments and short versions, the exclusive reliance on self-reports introduces the usual risks of shared method variance, retrospective bias, and subjective interpretation of emotional experience. This limitation is explicitly recognized in the measurement section, particularly for brief and single-item indicators used for some transcendence-related emotions.

Third, the behavioral indicator of non-parochial prosociality — the dictator game donation to an NGO — was included only in the Spanish carnival study. Therefore, the behavioral extension of the model could not be tested across all three ritual contexts. The Colombian and Chilean studies allow convergence for identity outcomes (IWAH) and emotional processes, but not for donation behavior, which limits cross-context behavioral generalization.

Fourth, the ritual contexts analyzed, although culturally diverse, are concentrated in positive-valence carnivals and syncretic celebrations in Spain and Latin America. The draft explicitly contrasts these with more parochial or exclusionary rituals but does not include direct comparative designs with strongly boundary-marked rituals. As a result, conclusions about differences between inclusive and parochial ritual forms remain theoretically grounded but empirically indirect within the present dataset.

The draft explicitly points to several directions for future research derived from both the theoretical framework and the empirical limits of the present studies. A first line of future work is the need for longitudinal and prospective designs around collective gatherings. The report cites evidence from large, multi-day secular mass gatherings showing that experiences of transformation and universal connection can increase over time and persist for months after the event (Yudkin et al., 2022), as well as evidence that a large proportion of adults report transcendence experiences linked to purposes and values larger than the self even in less massive encounters (Gabriel et al., 2019). Extending the present model with before–during–after and follow-up measurements would allow stronger tests of durability and temporal sequencing of the links between collective effervescence, awe, and inclusive identification.

A second direction identified in the draft is the expansion of research across a wider range of collective gatherings and ritual formats. The present studies focused on positive-valence carnivals and syncretic rituals with weak boundary marking. Future research should examine additional types of collective encounters — including everyday group activities such as family gatherings, religious services, demonstrations, and civic meetings — using the same process measures. The report references a cross-sectional study in Mexico and the Basque Country (N = 656) in which perceived emotional synchrony in diverse local collective meetings was associated with awe, self-transcendent values and beliefs, prosocial behavior, and identification with humanity (Cusi et al., 2022). Replicating and extending this approach across contexts would help specify boundary conditions and generalizability.

A third line for future research concerns improved measurement of self-transcendent emotions, especially awe. The draft notes known difficulties in the conceptual and linguistic differentiation of awe from surprise or admiration in Spanish and highlights the limits of brief and single-item indicators currently used in field settings. Future work is therefore needed using longer and more differentiated versions of awe and transcendence scales, alongside multimethod approaches, to better capture the full phenomenology of these emotional states.

Finally, the report situates this research program within the broader agenda of studying how emotionally intense collective events of positive valence and limited universalistic content can promote shared identities and common well-being through self-transcendent experience. Future research is encouraged to further test how inclusive and prosocial rituals can be leveraged in efforts addressing large-scale social issues and social exclusion, examining in greater detail the conditions under which collective emotional processes translate into sustained inclusive identification and generalized prosocial action (Basabe, 2021).