The Power of Collective Effervescence

With an assist from the New York Knicks!

Friends:

If you’re like me, you were not actually in Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night when, after being badly behind for most of the game, the New York Knicks pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA finals history by eking out a one-point victory over the San Antonio Spurs with 1.2 seconds left. Chances are that you were not, in fact, at the game when the crowd exploded into cheers (“Bedlam here at the Garden!” shouted announcer Mike Breen), the players embraced, Jerry Seinfeld’s jaw dropped open in amazement, and Larry David actually smiled.

And yet I’m willing to bet that if you’ve watched any videos from that moment, you felt something. I’m willing to bet (provided, of course, that you’re not a Spurs fan) that you smiled at the sight and sound of all those people laughing and screaming and crying together. You might even have teared up yourself. And you may have watched that moment of celebration more than once, even though you weren’t there, and even if, like me, you don’t particularly care about basketball or sports.

There’s a reason you felt something, and that feeling has a name.

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Collective Effervescence

This energized, euphoric, ebullient state is known as “collective effervescence,” a term attributed to French sociologist Émile Durkheim and defined in modern terms by organizational psychologist Adam Grant in a 2021 article in the New York Times (in which he was lamenting its absence, thanks to Covid-19):

“We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence,” wrote Grant. “It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives.”¹

Fast forward five years and I’m happy to say that collective effervescence has made a comeback, and it filled Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.

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The Effect of Our Phones

Watching collective effervescence sweep through the Garden reminded me of a conversation I had a year or so ago with Graham Dugoni, founder of Yondr, the company that makes the phone pouches that many schools and performers use to create phone-free spaces.

Graham — who believes that we should be creating phone-free spaces in the same way that our predecessors created the national parks — was talking about how putting away our phones can make it more likely for collective effervescence to occur, and amplify its power when it does.

On the flip side, he also talked about how, by diverting our attention, our phones can prevent collective effervescence from occurring, not just for the individual people who are checking their phones, but for the entire group. As he describes it, every time you’re with other people, having a shared experience, and someone checks their phone — even for a moment — it “creates a little pinprick in the roof of the building, and that energy leaves the room and doesn’t come back.”

In a lovely coincidence, Graham actually used the example of Madison Square Garden!

Now, obviously there were thousands of people on their phones in Madison Garden on Wednesday night, and the power of the Knicks’ comeback created so much energy, so much collective effervescence, that it was able to survive those pinprick holes.

But I’m willing you to bet you that in the moment when the Knicks made that final basket — let alone in the minutes afterwards, as strangers embraced and the crowd went wild — no one was killing time on Instagram. Instead, if they had their phones out, it was because they were taking a photo or a video. In other words, they were trying to capture the energy in the room, to bottle it up, to save it for later, because being there in the moment, feeling the collective energy, felt so freaking good.

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Collective Effervescence in “Normal” Life

Not every night can be like Wednesday night, and chances are that not many of you will be attending tonight’s game in San Antonio. (You might not even want to, because basketball might not be your thing!)

But that’s not the point. The point is that Adam Grant is right: collective effervescence does create some of our greatest moments of bliss.

So what creates collective effervescence for you? Is it singing in a choir? Is it seeing live music? Playing (or watching) sports? Dancing? Going to church? Goofing around with your family? Laughing with your friends?

Whatever it is, I encourage you to prioritize it. To create conditions that encourage it. To savor it when it happens and recognize that, while you can’t force it to happen, or fully capture collective effervescence on a phone, you do have the ability to find and create and be present in more moments when it might occur.

And every time that happens, you’ll feel more connected, more joyful, and a little less alone.

To scrolling less and living more,

Catherine Price

PS: Go Knicks!

PPS: I recently experienced collective flow when performing “Dancing on My Own” at a fundraiser with my band. (I’m on keys, admittedly not doing much on this one, but feeling it nonetheless!) This was the last song of the night, and we’d all weathered a thunderstorm together that threatened to call off the show. When the beat dropped, everyone went wild. It felt so fun to create that moment for people!

PPPS: My daily delight: dolphins playing in the waves behind the Thundercat, a catamaran in Cape May, NJ, whose wake attracts them. I can’t say for sure whether dolphins experience collective effervescence, but they certainly create it for the people watching them — and they sure do look like they’re having fun.

1. It’s important to note that collective effervescence isn’t always a good thing. It’s also present in situations when people are whipped into a (negative) frenzy, and can lead to bad results (e.g. riots and mobs). But for the purpose of this post, I’m focusing on the good stuff!