Collective anxiety and large-group psychology in times of global uncertainty

Abstract In the contemporary global landscape marked by pandemics, wars, economic instability, climate anxiety, and rapid technological transformation, uncertainty has ceased to be a temporary condition and has become a permanent psychological environment. This study examines collective anxiety as a large-group phenomenon, conceptualizing it not merely as the aggregation of individual fears but as an emergent psychosocial field shaped by shared narratives, symbolic threats, and unconscious group processes. Drawing on large-group psychology (Volkan), social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner), terror management theory (Greenberg et al.), and uncertainty-intolerance models (Carleton), the article argues that global uncertainty destabilizes collective meaning systems and reactivates archaic group defenses such as splitting, projection, idealization, and the construction of chosen traumas and chosen enemies. The paper further proposes that collective anxiety operates through narrative contagion, media amplification, and affective synchronization, producing transindividual emotional climates that influence political behavior, moral polarization, and intergroup hostility. At the same time, the study explores conditions under which collective anxiety may be transformed into collective resilience through meaning-making, symbolic integration, and the reconstruction of shared future imaginaries. By integrating clinical psychoanalytic perspectives with social psychology and cultural trauma theory, this article develops a multidimensional model of how large groups psychologically respond to chronic uncertainty, highlighting the fragile boundary between social cohesion and mass regression in the age of global instability. Keywords: collective anxiety, large-group psychology, global uncertainty, social identity, terror management, chosen trauma, narrative contagion, resilience