Singing in synchrony, even if the song is an out-group anthem (“O Canada”, when the subjects were USA residents), causes more trust and and greater feelings of being on the same team, as well as an increased willingness to cooperate in a public goods game.
Not that I disagree with the conclusion, but I would hazard that a lot of US residents consider Canada a part of ‘us’ - not the USA, but very friendly. Try substituting a national anthem for a country that typical US citizens aren’t really aware of—Bhutan, say. For bonus points, use the anthem of the international communist party.
I’d suspect that singing outgroup anthems would have a significantly stronger group-bonding effect than singing the local national anthem or something like it, by way of implicitly setting the group against the larger society. A group of Americans singing the Internationale has a lot more to bond over than the same Americans singing along to the Star-Spangled Banner at a baseball game, and I’d expect people’s emotional regulation to pick up this distinction even if it isn’t borne out by explicit preferences.
Yes, it would be a very interesting experiment. It could mess things up by taking people out of the singing. How the two effects balance out could vary wildly across individuals.
Not that I disagree with the conclusion, but I would hazard that a lot of US residents consider Canada a part of ‘us’ - not the USA, but very friendly. Try substituting a national anthem for a country that typical US citizens aren’t really aware of—Bhutan, say. For bonus points, use the anthem of the international communist party.
I’d suspect that singing outgroup anthems would have a significantly stronger group-bonding effect than singing the local national anthem or something like it, by way of implicitly setting the group against the larger society. A group of Americans singing the Internationale has a lot more to bond over than the same Americans singing along to the Star-Spangled Banner at a baseball game, and I’d expect people’s emotional regulation to pick up this distinction even if it isn’t borne out by explicit preferences.
Yes, it would be a very interesting experiment. It could mess things up by taking people out of the singing. How the two effects balance out could vary wildly across individuals.
Aren’t national anthems designed from the ground-up to trigger this sort of emotional reaction anyway?