It has been argued that the international cooperation needed to deal with global problems requires the development of a global community. We hypothesized that the sense of belonging to such a community would be promoted if we could increase a general sense of hopefulness about humanity and that such a sense of hopefulness would be influenced by the news to which persons are subjected. Participants were asked to visit news websites with different emotional tones. Those sent to a typical news site or to a fashion site showed a small but significant decrease in their sense of global community. Those sent to a nongovernmental organization (NGO) website featuring solutions-oriented news showed a significant increase. The latter site provoked greater admiration, appreciation, and hope, and less anger, disgust, and fear. Increase in a sense of global community was predicted by the extent to which the NGO site provoked both admiration and fear.

The attainment and maintenance of international justice would seem to require the establishment of a global community consciousness based on socioemotional relationships, the recognition of dependence on a common earth, and cooperative work on common concerns. This solidarity of community provides a base for international organization that needs to be distinguished from the cohesion of a superordinate group. Although it maintains diversity, a global community probably requires inclusionary rituals that would celebrate an inclusive unity involving common concerns, themes that could be celebrated by all peoples. To test the possibility of articulating such themes, over 2,000 people from 25 different nations were given 8 possible themes for celebration. All the themes were desired by over 80% of the respondents and one-the courage to build justice for the children who will inherit this world-was desired by 93% of the sample. Asked if they would like to participate in a celebration of global community, 78% answered probably or definitely with over 65% wanting to participate from all but 2 of the sampled nations. Although the results suggest the development of a global norm, we cannot be sure of the strength of this norm and the extent to which people would actually attend celebrations. These limitations could be addressed if the themes were used in celebrations of global community whose attendance and impact were assessed. Public Significance Statement This article provides a way to further the community needed to achieve international peace and justice.

This chapter describes the concept of socio-emotional relations. Tamara Dembo often wrote about the relationship between the person and the environment and is known for emphasizing that handicaps may be seen as existing in the environmental rather than personal part of the life space. Dembo points out that a person is in relationships with strangers, acquaintances, co-workers, professionals, friends, and family members, and that these others may be disinterested, mildly interested in one, or personally concerned and involved. Dembo notes that tolerance, appreciation, and respect are "neighboring" relations to acceptance. Dembo's emphasis on "twoness" suggests that her work can be related to that of J. Macmurray, who argued that the dyad was the basic unit of the personal and made dyadic relations the basis of his philosophy. Dembo distinguishes between two types of distance, one that is created by abandonment and rejection, and an other which has to do with inequality.

Increasing economic globalization creates conflicts that can only be constructively managed if individuals and groups realize they now belong to a single people. The required sense of such a community does not involve a social group identity—as though being human consisted of being categorized as a member of a superordinate group. Rather, it involves the realization that personal identity depends on the socio-emotional relations involved in community and that the current situation requires a community that is global rather than local or national. The nature of this personal global identity and the sort of global community that is needed is explored in this article. Developing a sense of unity amongst people has always required ritual celebration, and achieving the consciousness that persons worldwide now form a global community will require a particular type of ritual whose nature is described. The authors report on some pilot studies which demonstrate that it is possible to present the idea of global identity in a way that emphasizes personal active relationships rather than group belonging, that this may increase a sense of global identification, and that one can create a celebration that may enhance the sense of personal identity in a global community. We conclude by exploring the ways in which conceiving personal identity in communal terms has implications for research on global identity and conflict. And, finally, we report on present day initiatives that may develop a global communal consciousness, and identify and describe celebrations of community that may advance a sense of global community.

The social unit that we call a society is a constructed rather than natural unit. The sense of unity, the feeling of oneness, must be intended and cultivated, and this is largely achieved with the use of collective emotions. Although Durkheim gives many examples of how rituals are used to periodically reaffirm the unity of social groups, the development of more complex societies requires the unification of very diverse groups with quite different languages and customs. These societies are unified by different types of political structures that require different types of emotional cultures. After considering how emotions are involved in the formation of the nation-states that are the basis of most of our current societies, the chapter examines how there is a conflict between the need for autonomy and the need to be part of a group. It presents a new conceptualization of personal identity that suggests the type of society that can satisfy both needs. Finally, this conceptualization, together with our understanding of collective emotions, is used to suggest how we might form the social identity required for world government.

In 2010, a provocative conference on the psychology of genocide was held at Clark University. I had hoped the conference would result in some agreement about the psychological dynamics involved in genocide and lay the groundwork for future collaboration in our community of peacebuilding psychologists. Instead, I found more disagreement than consensus. Often people talked past one another, and I began to realize that some of the clinical and social psychologists who attended had completely different understandings of the dynamics involved in violence. One example of this—a disagreement over the dynamics involved in humiliation and aggression—deserves particular attention.

Political PsychologyVolume 33, Issue 4 p. 577-579 Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict, and Terrorism – By Ervin Staub Joseph de Rivera, Joseph de Rivera Clark UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Joseph de Rivera, Joseph de Rivera Clark UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 July 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00890.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume33, Issue4August 2012Pages 577-579 RelatedInformation

Emotions involve transformations of the relationships that exist in the "natural" world as well as in social worlds. Thus, the emotions that humans construct are based on affective processes that exist independently from human society and are not necessarily constituted by the interplay of culture and genetic or physiological processes.

El presente volumen analiza el impacto de la violencia colectiva en sus victimas directas y en la sociedad en general, y el desafio que supone la reconstruccion de las relaciones sociales, las bases de la convivencia y el respeto a los derechos humanos. El estudio abre con los aspectos mas contextuales y amplios de la violencia colectiva para centrarse despues en el impacto de esta sobre los afectados: sobre su bienestar psicosocial y sus creencias basicas pero tambien en la capacidad de resistencia de las victimas como sujetos activos y algunas reacciones de crecimiento post-traumatico. La tercera parte analiza el papel de la memoria y el perdon: las comisiones de la verdad y reconciliacion en contextos de transicion politica. Finalmente se presentan algunos estudios sobre la educacion para la paz y los modelos de trabajo mas relevantes dentro del ambito escolar. Los diferentes capitulos incluyen asimismo los instrumentos de medida mas importantes para cada uno de los temas analizados. Todo ello con el objetivo ultimo de desarrollar una «politica positiva» que ofrezca los elementos necesarios para la construccion de una cultura de paz. CARLOS MARTIN BERISTAIN es medico y doctor en psicologia. Colabora con el Instituto de Derechos Humanos Pedro Arrupe, y ha sido consultor de comisiones de verdad y organismos de derechos humanos. Es autor, entre otras obras, de Reconstruir el tejido social.

AbstractEmotional climate refers to the prevailing state of emotional relationships in a collective. These may either involve the relationships between individuals or between groups/communities within a society. Thus, descriptions of emotional climate involve the extent to which people, and groups within a collective, trust and respect one another, and the degree to which a society is unified or polarized. They include the extent to which people are feeling secure, are living in a climate of fear that isolates people from one another, or experience a climate of anger and despair at the corruption in their government. The state of the emotional climate may be described along different emotional dimensions and regarded as the collective's affective response to its economic, political, and social conditions.