Extreme Social Bonding During Queen Elizabeth’s Funeral

In this talk, we outline the theoretical rationale, methods, results, and discussion of two preregistered studies (currently under review for publication), as follows:

 

Introduction

On September 19, 2022, a million people gathered in London to witness Queen Elizabeth II's funeral procession (Davies, 2022), while millions watched globally (Frank, 2022; Walfisz, J., 2022). The coordinated and symbolically rich procession evoked weeping, embraces, and spontaneous applause amongst the crowd (Jones, 2022; Woodcock, 2022), and British news outlets described a nation united in grief (Russell, 2022).

 

These reports align with longstanding conjectures in the social sciences about forging and reinforcing group bonding during funerary rituals (Bloch & Parry, 1982; Durkheim, 1912; Goody, 1962; Malinowski, 1948; van Gennepp, 1960) and contemporary research on the social psychology of group commitment. Accumulating evidence reveals that sharing emotionally intense dysphoric experiences with others, including viewing a ritual (Xygalatas et al., 2011), leads to incredibly potent social bonding. This form of bonding may entail identity fusion, a visceral feeling of oneness with the group (Swann et al., 2012), which can result from experiences of shared suffering (Jong et al., 2015; Whitehouse et al., 2017; Whitehouse & Lanman, 2014). Amongst highly-fused individuals, the boundaries that usually demarcate the personal and social self become highly permeable, motivating progroup behavior, including acts of charity (Whitehouse, 2018).

 

 

Methods and Results

We investigated the causes and effects of witnessing Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, rigorously testing, and refining long-standing qualitative claims about the power of funeral rituals by uncovering the causal mechanisms and quantifiable effects of this universal human behavior.

 

The initial study, involving 1,632 Britons surveyed within two weeks of the funeral, validated predictions that intense sadness during the event correlated with heightened identity fusion and pro-group commitment. Participants demonstrated commitment through generous pledges from their participant compensation to a British Monarchist charity. Unity in grief emerged as a mediating factor connecting sadness intensity to pro-group commitment, with the perceived synchronicity of sadness moderating the association between emotional intensity and identity fusion, particularly among other members of the British public.

 

The subsequent longitudinal examination, involving 237 Britons over 12 months, provided evidence for the hypothesized causal psycho-social pathways to identity fusion. As expected, the visceral quality of memories exerted a transformative effect on personal identity through processes of personal reflection, ultimately leading to identity fusion via perceived sharedness within the group.

 

Conclusion

This research contributes to accumulating evidence that sharing emotionally intense dysphoric experiences with others, including viewing sacred funerary rituals, leads to incredibly potent social bonding.

 

References

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Davies, R. (2022, September 20). Queen’s funeral in numbers: All the key facts and figures, from flowers to animals. Evening Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/queens-funeral-facts-numbers-world-re...

Durkheim, É. (1912). Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse [The elementary forms of religious life]. Paris, France: Alcan.

Frank, B. (2022, September 28). Fact check: BBC reported 28 million in United Kingdom watched Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/28/fact-check-bbc-reported-28-million-uk-watched-queens-funeral/8103892001/

Goody, J. (1962). Death, property and the ancestors: A study of the mortuary customs of the Lodagaa of West Africa. Standford: Stanford University Press.

Jones, H. (2022, September 19). Queen’s historic funeral moves Britain to tears. Metro. https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/19/queens-funeral-moves-britain-to-tears-as-...

Jong, J., Whitehouse, H., Kavanagh, C., & Lane, J. (2015). Shared negative experiences lead to identity fusion via personal reflection. PloS One, 10(12), e0145611.

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Russell, G. (2022, September 20). The final farewell: What the papers said about the Queen’s funeral. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/20/what-the-newspaper-front...

Swann Jr, W. B., Gómez, A., Seyle, D. C., Morales, J., & Huici, C. (2009). Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 995.

van Gennep, A. (1960). "The Rites of Passage (M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Caffee, (Trans.). University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1909).

Walfisz, J. (2022, September 21). From 8km queues to open cinemas and social media: how the world watched the Queen's funeral. Euronews.com. https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/09/20/from-8km-queues-to-open-cinemas-and-social-media-how-the-world-watched-the-queens-funeral

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Whitehouse, H., & Lanman, J. A. (2014). The ties that bind us: Ritual, fusion, and identification. Current Anthropology, 55(6), 674-695.

Woodcock, A. (2022, September 19). Poignant day of pageantry and grief marks end of second Elizabethan age. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-elizabeth-funeral-charles-biden-b2170346.html

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