Identity fusion—a visceral feeling of oneness with a group—is thought to result from the sharing of emotional, often dysphoric, experiences. In this pre-registered longitudinal study, we address the impact of flashbulb memories of learning about the outcome of the Brexit referendum on both identity fusion and social identification. As predicted, the visceral quality of people’s flashbulb memories had a transformative effect on personal identity via processes of personal reflection and this, in turn, led to identity fusion via perceived sharedness with the group. Sharing personally transformative memories in this way did not lead to social identification, suggesting that perceived sharedness is key to identity fusion but not to social identification. Understanding how emotional public events impact personal identities and how they produce peculiar forms of group alignment have important implications for explaining and managing societal threats such as polarization and forms of political and religious extremism.

身份融合——一种与群体合一的发自内心的感觉——被认为是情感分享的结果，通常是烦躁的经历。在这项预先注册的纵向研究中，我们讨论了闪光灯记忆对了解英国退欧公投结果对身份融合和社会认同的影响。正如预测的那样，人们的闪光灯记忆的内在品质通过个人反思的过程对个人身份产生了变革性的影响，而这反过来又通过与群体的感知共享导致了身份融合。以这种方式分享个人变革性记忆并不会导致社会认同，这表明感知共享是身份融合的关键，但不是社会认同的关键。