ABSTRACT
Group members experience collective angst when they feel concern for the future vitality of their social group. Both distinctiveness threat and extinction threat (symbolically and physically) give rise to this collective emotion. The emotional goal of collective angst is the desire to protect one’s group from the perceived unwanted future. This can be done constructively (e.g. donating time and money to one’s group) or destructively (e.g. prejudice against groups perceived to be the source of the collective angst).
