The Positive Emotion of Elevation.
quote:Fredrickson (2000) shows how the positive emotions of joy, interest, and contentment do useful things, not only from an evolutionary point of view but also from a clinical point of view.
This brief essay applies Fredrickson's model to a new positive emotion that has not been described thus far by academic psychologists: elevation. Elevation is a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, and compassion (Haidt, Algoe, Meijer, Tam, & Chandler, 2000). It makes a person want to help others and to become a better person himself or herself.
http://www.uua.org/uuawo/12_21_00.html
quote:"Even a glimpse of human kindness--a hand placed on a leper's forehead, or a newborn, once fragile and abandoned, being lifted from its crib--can be enough to evoke what University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls "elevation." A branch of the vagus nerve is activated, he said, giving the chest "a sensation of expansion," provoking chills, causing the tear ducts to well up, and in some cases, clenching the throat.
"From the beginning, the inspiring behavior of some people has posed what evolutionary theorists call "the problem of altruism" --that is, why does charity exist at all? In the Darwinian crucible where only the fittest survive, one would expect that creatures who give food away would quickly go extinct. Any altruistic tendencies should have disappeared, washed away in the acid bath of competition...
"The solution, scientists think, lies in the insight that humans, like chimpanzees or dolphins, are social animals that communicate and cooperate to survive in a hostile environment...The answer has not been settled, but still, biologists are increasingly convinced that the roots of goodness run deep. Morality, they say, is not solely a human creation, invented by philosophers and religious leaders to tame a sinning beast, but part of our core being, driven by instinct and emotion."
Haidt has also co-authored:
Approaching Awe: a Moral, Spiritual, and Aesthetic Emotion
quote:In the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear is a little studied emotion -- awe. Awe is felt about diverse events and objects, from waterfalls to childbirth to scenes of devastation. Awe is part of the human experience of religion, politics, nature, and art. Fleeting and rare, experiences of awe can change the course of a life in profound and permanent ways. Yet the field of emotion research is almost silent with respect to awe. Few emotion theorists consider awe in their taxonomies, and those who do have done little to differentiate it from other states.
quote:Arjuna asks Krishna if he can see this universe for himself, and Krishna grants him his wish. Krishna gives Arjuna a "cosmic eye" that will allow him to see God and the universe as they really are.
Arjuna then experiences something that sounds to a modern reader like a psychotic break or psychedelic experience. He sees gods, suns, and infinite time and space. He is filled with amazement (vismitas). His hair stands on end. He becomes disoriented as he struggles to describe the wonders he is beholding. ...
A similar case of awe-inspired transformation can be found in the famous story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.
Nice to know there are folks out there studying more than just serial killers and anorexics.... |
