Events That Foster Positive Emotions Is Key to Creating a Collective Identityaquarius and scorpio friendship percentage

Summary: Events that encourage emotion sharing are key to team building and generating a positive collective identity.

Source: University of Colorado

In a new study published in Organization Science, researchers found organizations can unite members from different backgrounds behind a collective identity by organizing events that foster positive emotions and empathy.

University of Colorado Denver Assistant Professor Cyrus Dioun conducted the research to investigate how shared emotions can help align diverse groups.

While attending MakerFaire, an event celebrating“Do-It-Yourself” (DIY)activities across a wide range of domains, researchersfound that through hands-on workshopsand demonstrations, attendeesexperiencedpositive emotions and passion that individuals feeltowardtheir work. This event also features large spectacles such as fire-breathing dragon cars, which creates a collective feeling of excitement,similar towhat you would experience at a live sporting event.

“Maker Faire attendees feel their shared connection to one another, even when intellectually they may feel far apart,” saidDioun. “For example, mathematicians and computer hackers find their shared connection with aerial artists, gardeners, and hula-hoop aficionados.”

The research focuses onhow a growing sectororindustry, whether it be organic food or DIYprojects,canmaintaina consistent identity even as it grows to include a wider range of participants.Theidentity ofan industrymay be easy to understand when it’ssmaller and there are companies withsimilarbackgrounds andproducts.Asthe field grows,it attractsnewcomers withdifferentbackgroundsand practices, leading to internalconflict about what defines theindustry.

By leveraging fieldwork, natural language processing of text data, and statistical analysis, researchers examined how an industry’s identity became harder to consistently define as it grew larger and more legitimate.

They also examined how organizations can strategically arrange events that encouraged the sharing of positive emotions and empathy, helping members from different backgrounds feel their shared connection to one another and the industry’s identity. Image is in the public domain

“We show that as an organization, industry, or sector gets more popular,it attracts a wider variety of participantswhich makes it difficult tospecify theoverall messageof the company,” saidDioun. “We also show that collective events that involve these emotional interactions helped clarify the aspects of the organization, industry, or sector that unite these increasingly diverse actors.”

This study was conducted in collaboration with scholars at the University of California Berkeley and University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.