What Is Collective Joy?

Kelly McGonigal says collective joy is people feeling something positive together and showing it in a way that pulls everybody into a sense of being bigger than self. Her favorite version is a concert, when the crowd holds up phone lights or the confetti drops. Sports can do the same thing. People in the stands feel as if they won the game even though they never played.

A close connection with one person feels like a small bubble: safe, trusting, and drawing the two people closer. Joy shared with a lot of people at once does something else. It makes you feel that you belong to a society that is good, and that you are accepted just because you are human. At a concert, at a sporting event, or anywhere people are laughing, smiling, applauding, or singing, people say they are more hopeful about life. They feel more confident they can meet challenges in their own lives, and that the biggest problems in the world are solvable.