{
  "id": "collective-self.shared",
  "term": "collective self",
  "sense": "shared",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A self model kept across many members, whose subject is the group they are members of, so the group reads itself as one thing.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "member.social",
      "groups.collection",
      "model.representation",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "across.spatial",
      "read.information",
      "subject.entity"
    ],
    "interaction": "Each member holds a model of the group that includes itself; where those models overlap, the group can report on, protect and steer itself as though it were a single self, though no single member holds the whole.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a self with no single holder",
      "a boundary drawn by many models at once",
      "the subject of 'we'"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Surveys asking whether people identify first with their nation, region or religion measure which collective self each respondent's model holds most strongly.",
      "domain": "social science"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "identity.self",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "identity is a self model held by one thing; the collective self is held across many"
    },
    {
      "id": "groupthink.collective",
      "type": "enables",
      "note": "groupthink is a collective self that mistakes its own repetition for truth"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "american-dream.upward-reach",
    "asian-century.claimed-future",
    "belonging.member",
    "bharat-vs-india.names",
    "buy-local.firms",
    "citizens-first.ranked",
    "consumer-confidence.measured",
    "country-in-decline.downward",
    "crisis-of-confidence.collapse",
    "deep-state.hidden",
    "diaspora-vote.abroad",
    "economic-anxiety.unlocated",
    "economic-nationalism.firms",
    "elite.few",
    "engine-of-growth.driver",
    "establishment.settled",
    "fear-and-greed.swing",
    "feel-good-factor.rising",
    "fifth-column.inside",
    "foreign-interference.outside",
    "founding-fathers.origin",
    "golden-age.past-peak",
    "greatest-generation.past-cohort",
    "heartland.core",
    "hunger-for-change.appetite",
    "ick-factor.aversion",
    "in-group.inside",
    "law-abiding-citizens.deserving",
    "locals-only.closed",
    "lost-decade.stalled",
    "market-jitters.near-wall",
    "middle-class.centre",
    "miracle-economy.outran-model",
    "mood-of-the-country.read",
    "morale.collective",
    "nation-of-immigrants.arrival",
    "nation-of-shopkeepers.kind",
    "national-champion.carrier",
    "national-pride.collective",
    "never-again.past-wall",
    "new-chapter.rupture",
    "north-south-divide.regional",
    "not-one-of-us.unlike",
    "one-nation.whole",
    "one-percent.few",
    "ordinary-people.core",
    "our-borders-our-rules.self-set",
    "our-way-of-life.pattern",
    "out-group.outside",
    "outrage-of-the-week.serial",
    "outsiders-coming-in.crossing",
    "pain-at-the-pump.felt-price",
    "pocketbook-issues.felt",
    "proud-tradition.standing",
    "punching-above-our-weight.outsized",
    "real-people.narrowed",
    "restore-dignity.status",
    "rising-power.upward",
    "risk-appetite.width",
    "second-class-citizens.lesser",
    "self-sufficient.autarkic",
    "sense-of-grievance.collective",
    "shock-doctrine.exploit",
    "silent-majority.unheard",
    "sovereign-wealth.held",
    "stay-the-course.persistence",
    "strategic-industry.kept",
    "take-back-our-country.regain",
    "this-is-who-we-are.identity-claim",
    "tradition.kept",
    "us-versus-them.split",
    "voter-fatigue.worn",
    "we-built-this.maker-claim",
    "we-the-people.setter",
    "wealth-effect.spending",
    "winter-of-discontent.strikes",
    "working-families.broad",
    "worlds-largest-democracy.superlative",
    "wounded-nation.damaged"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "collective identity",
    "collective self",
    "collective selves"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-collective-self.shared"
}