ORIGINAL ARTICLE Emotional contagion in a collective ritual Dimitris Xygalatas 1,2,3 | Martin Lang 4 | Peter Ma ˇ no 4,5 | Jan Kr atký 4 | Ronald Fischer 6,7 1 Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA 2 Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA 3 Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA 4 LEVYNA Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 5 Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Bratislava, Slovakia 6 Instituto D'Or de Pesquisa e Ensino, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 7 School of Psychology, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Correspondence Dimitris Xygalatas, Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA. Email: xygalatas@uconn.edu Funding information College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Connecticut; Masaryk University, Grant/Award Number: MUNI/ A/1339/2023; Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Grant/Award Number: COFUND#754513; Ministerstvo ˇ skolstva, vedy, výskumu a ˇ sportu Slovenskej republiky, Grant/Award Number: VEGA1/0724/23 Abstract Collective gatherings are often associated with the alignment of psychophysio- logical states between members of a crowd. While the process of emotional contagion has been studied extensively in dyads as well as at the population level, our understanding of its operation and dynamics as they unfold in real time in real-world group contexts remains limited. Employing a naturalistic design, we investigated emotional contagion in a public religious ritual by examining the relationship between interpersonal distance and autonomic arousal. We found that proximity in space was associated with heightened affective synchrony between participants in the context of the emotionally laden ritual (a Hindu procession) compared with an unstructured walk along the same route performed by the same group. Our findings contribute to the understanding of collective emotions and their underlying psychophysiological mechanisms, emphasizing the role of cultural practices in shaping collective emotional experiences. 1 | INTRODUCTION Collective gatherings incite strong emotions. Their role in eliciting states of exaltation and inducing affective, cogni- tive, and behavioral changes that can transform individ- uals into groups has received much theoretical attention since the inception of the social sciences. While several early thinkers focused primarily on negative aspects of shared arousal such as the loss of reason, individuality, and personal responsibility (Canetti, 1962; Freud, 1949; Le Bon, 1896), others also noted its potential to create positive feelings and enhance social cohesion (Durkheim, 1915; McDougall, 1920; Tarde, 1890; Whitehouse & Lanman, 2014). Contemporary research has provided support for these social effects, suggesting that participa- tion in highly arousing communal events can generate Received: 26 January 2024 Revised: 10 May 2024 Accepted: 23 May 2024 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.24111 Am J Hum Biol. 2024;e24111. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajhb © 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 1 of 12 https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24111