Kama muta: Conceptualizing and measuring the experience often labelled being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages

The CARE System in Its Importance in Dealing with Today's Crises1

The CARE system is a gift from Mother Nature, we have it in our biological heritage; it enables us humans-as a basic gift-to help each other in a large, life-serving context, and thus also to counterbalance destruction. It is about a basic human ability, linked to typical behaviour, but also about a basic human need for connectedness. In this paper, I would like to show how the CARE system can be activated as a collective attitude. The CARE system is strengthened by positive emotions. We are currently being affected by many crises and this triggers fear. How can we deal with this better? Fear is countered with hope and the associated positive emotions such as joy, awe, kama muta and others. These emotions and feelings can be consciously encouraged and placed alongside the feelings of fear. But also, when we share the feelings of grief with each other, it triggers an attitude of CARE. We can grieve together for the various experiences of loss that we go through-but we can also imagine together how we envisage a future that is worth living for everyone. An attitude in the sense of CARING has been practised in friendship for thousands of years. It would therefore be possible to move away from an attitude of competing and outdoing, to an attitude not only of recognition, care, and solidarity in human interaction, but also in our connection with nature.

Predicting individual differences in peak emotional response

Why does the same experience elicit strong emotional responses in some individuals while leaving others largely indifferent? Is the variance influenced by who people are (personality traits), how they feel (emotional state), where they come from (demographics), or a unique combination of these? In this 2,900+ participants study, we disentangle the factors that underlie individual variations in the universal experience of aesthetic chills, the feeling of cold and shivers down the spine during peak experiences. Here, we unravel the interplay of psychological and sociocultural dynamics influencing self-reported chills reactions. A novel technique harnessing mass data mining of social media platforms curates the first large database of ecologically sourced chills-evoking stimuli. A combination of machine learning techniques (LASSO and SVM) and multilevel modeling analysis elucidates the interacting roles of demographics, traits, and states factors in the experience of aesthetic chills. These findings highlight a tractable set of features predicting the occurrence and intensity of chills-age, sex, pre-exposure arousal, predisposition to Kama Muta (KAMF), and absorption (modified tellegen absorption scale [MODTAS]), with 73.5% accuracy in predicting the occurrence of chills and accounting for 48% of the variance in chills intensity. While traditional methods typically suffer from a lack of control over the stimuli and their effects, this approach allows for the assignment of stimuli tailored to individual biopsychosocial profiles, thereby, increasing experimental control and decreasing unexplained variability. Further, they elucidate how hidden sociocultural factors, psychological traits, and contextual states shape seemingly "subjective" phenomena.

Exploring the origins of identity fusion: Shared emotional experience activates fusion with the group over time

Identity fusion is a visceral feeling of oneness with a group, known to strongly motivate extreme pro-group behaviour. However, the evidence on its causes is currently limited, primarily due to the prevalence of cross-sectional research. To address this gap, this study analysed the evolution of fusion in response to a massive collective ritual, Korrika-a race in support of the Basque language-, over three time periods: before (n = 748) and immediately following participation (n = 402), and 7 weeks thereafter (n = 273). Furthermore, we explored the potential mediating roles of two key factors: perceived emotional synchrony, a sense of emotional unity among participants that emerges during collective rituals, and kama muta (moved by love), an unexplored emotion in relation to fusion, which arises from feelings of shared essence. The proportion of fused participants increased significantly after participation and remained stable for at least 7 weeks. Perceived emotional synchrony and kama muta apparently explained the effect of participants' behavioural involvement in the ritual on subsequent fusion, but only among those who were not previously fused with Korrika participants. We conclude that emotional processes during collective rituals play a fundamental role in the construction of identity fusion.

ChillsDB 2.0: Individual Differences in Aesthetic Chills Among 2,900+ Southern California Participants

We significantly enriched ChillsDB, a dataset of audiovisual stimuli validated to elicit aesthetic chills. A total of 2,937 participants from Southern California were exposed to 40 stimuli, consisting of 20 stimuli (10 from ChillsDB and 10 new) presented either in audiovisual or audio-only formats. Questionnaires were administered assessing demographics, personality traits, state affect, and political orientation. Detailed data on chills responses is captured alongside participants' ratings of the stimuli. The dataset combines controlled elicitation of chills using previously validated materials with individual difference measures to enable investigation of predictors and correlates of aesthetic chills phenomena. It aims to support continued research on the mechanisms and therapeutic potential of aesthetic chills responses.

Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically Documented, at Émile Durkheim's Theory of Collective Assemblies and Collective Effervescence

For Durkheim, individuals' survival and well-being rest on cultural resources and social belonging that must be revived periodically in collective assemblies. Durkheim's concern was to clarify how these assemblies achieve this revitalization. An intensive examination of primitive religions led him to identify successive levels of engagement experienced by participants and to develop explanatory principles relevant to all types of collective gatherings. Durkheim's conception is widely referred to nowadays. However, the question of its empirical status remains open. We extracted from his text his main statements and translated them into research questions. We then examined each question in relation to current theories and findings. In particular, we relied on the plethora of recent cognitive and social-psychology studies that document conditions of reduced self-other differentiation. Abundant data support that each successive moment of collective assemblies contributes to blurring this differentiation. Ample support also exists that because shared emotions are increasingly amplified in collective context, they can fuel high-intensity experiences. Moreover, recent studies of self-transcendent emotions can account for the self-transformative effects described by Durkheim at the climax of collective assemblies. In conclusion, this century-old model is remarkably supported by recent results, mostly collected in experimental settings.

Connecting cues: The role of nonverbal cues in perceived responsiveness

Nonverbal cues powerfully shape interpersonal experiences with close others; yet, there has been minimal cross-fertilization between the nonverbal behavior and close relationships literatures. Using examples of responsive nonverbal behavior conveyed across vocal, tactile, facial, and bodily channels of communication, we illustrate the utility of assessing and isolating their effects to differentiate the contributions of verbal and nonverbal displays of listening and responsiveness to relationship outcomes. We offer suggestions for methodological approaches to better capture responsive behavior across verbal and nonverbal channels, and discuss theoretical and practical implications of carrying out this work to better clarify what makes people feel understood, validated, listened to, and cared for.

Emotional content and sharing on Facebook: A theory cage match

While emotional content predicts social media post sharing, competing theories of emotion imply different predictions about how emotional content will influence the virality of social media posts. We tested and compared these theoretical frameworks. Teams of annotators assessed more than 4000 multimedia posts from Polish and Lithuanian Facebook for more than 20 emotions. We found that, drawing on semantic space theory, modeling discrete emotions independently was superior to models examining valence (positive or negative), activation/arousal (high or low), or clusters of emotions and was on par with but had more explanatory power than a seven basic emotion model. Certain discrete emotions were associated with post sharing, including both positive and negative and relatively lower and higher activation/arousal emotions (e.g., amusement, cute/kama muta, anger, and sadness) even when controlling for number of followers, time up, topic, and Facebook angry reactions. These results provide key insights into better understanding of social media post virality.

Social media emotions annotation guide (SMEmo): Development and initial validity

The proper measurement of emotion is vital to understanding the relationship between emotional expression in social media and other factors, such as online information sharing. This work develops a standardized annotation scheme for quantifying emotions in social media using recent emotion theory and research. Human annotators assessed both social media posts and their own reactions to the posts' content on scales of 0 to 100 for each of 20 (Study 1) and 23 (Study 2) emotions. For Study 1, we analyzed English-language posts from Twitter (N = 244) and YouTube (N = 50). Associations between emotion ratings and text-based measures (LIWC, VADER, EmoLex, NRC-EIL, Emotionality) demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, we tested an expanded version of the scheme in-country, in-language, on Polish (N = 3648) and Lithuanian (N = 1934) multimedia Facebook posts. While the correlations were lower than with English, patterns of convergent and discriminant validity with EmoLex and NRC-EIL still held. Coder reliability was strong across samples, with intraclass correlations of .80 or higher for 10 different emotions in Study 1 and 16 different emotions in Study 2. This research improves the measurement of emotions in social media to include more dimensions, multimedia, and context compared to prior schemes.

Moral Beauty During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prosocial Behavior Among Adolescents and the Inspiring Role of the Media

In this study, we examined whether adolescents helped others during the COVID-19 pandemic and how stories in the media inspired them in doing so. Using an online daily diary design, 481 younger adolescents (M = 15.29, SD = 1.76) and 404 older adolescents (M = 21.48, SD = 1.91) were followed for 2 weeks. Findings from linear mixed effects models demonstrated that feelings of being moved by stories in the media were related to giving emotional support to family and friends, and to helping others, including strangers. Exposure to COVID-19 news and information was found to spark efforts to support and help as well and keeping physical distance in line with the advised protective behaviors against COVID-19. Moreover, helping others was related to increased happiness. Overall, the findings of this study highlight the potential role of the media in connecting people in times of crisis.

Korrika, running in collective effervescence through the Basque Country: A model of collective processes and their positive psychological effects

The neo-Durkheimnian model suggests that feedback and emotional communion between participants during a collective gathering (i.e., perceived emotional synchrony: PES) is one of the key mechanisms of collective processes. This shared emotional experience gives rise, in turn, to more intense emotions, this being one of the explanatory models of the positive psychological effects of collective participation. Through a quasi-longitudinal design of three measurement-times (N = 273, 65.9% women; age: 18-70, M = 39.43, SD = 11.64), the most massive social mobilization that is celebrated in favor of the Basque language in the Basque Country (Korrika) was analyzed. Repeated measures and sequential mediation analyzes supported the model. The effect of participation on social integration was mediated by the increase in emotions of enjoyment through PES; the effect on social acceptance, social contribution, and social actualization was mediated by increased kama muta through PES; the effect on collective empowerment was mediated by the increase in self-transcendent emotions through PES; and the effect on remembered well-being was partially mediated by PES. Finally, it was also verified for the first time that the effect of participation on social integration, social acceptance and social actualization was maintained through PES (but not through emotions) for at least 6-7 weeks after the event ended. Also, it is concluded that Kama muta is a relevant emotion during collective gatherings.

The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

Social media users are often exposed to cute content that evokes emotional reactions and influences them to feel or behave certain ways. The cuteness phenomenon in social media has been scarcely studied despite its prevalence and potential to spread quickly and affect large audiences. The main framework for understanding cuteness and emotions related to cuteness outside of social media is baby schema (having juvenile characteristics), which triggers parental instincts. We propose that baby schema is a necessary but not sufficient component of explaining what constitutes cuteness and how people react to it in the social media context. Cute social media content may also have characteristics that evoke approach motivations (a desire to interact with an entity, generally with the expectation of having a positive experience) that can manifest behaviorally in sharing and other prosocial online behaviors. We developed and performed initial validation for measures in social media contexts of: (1) cute attributes that encompass both baby schema and other proposed cuteness characteristics (the Cuteness Attributes Taxonomy, CAT) and (2) the emotional reactions they trigger (Heartwarming Social Media, HSM). We used the Kama Muta Multiplex Scale (KAMMUS Two), as previously validated measure of kama muta (an emotion akin to tenderness; from Sanskrit, "moved by love") as a measure of emotional reaction to cute stimuli and the dimension Cute Content of the Social Media Emotions Annotation Guide (SMEmo-Cute Content) as a developed measure of gestalt cute content to help validate our newly developed measures. Using 1,875 Polish tweets, our results confirmed that cute social media content predicted a kama muta response, but not all KAMMUS Two subscales were sensitive to cute content, and that the HSM measure was a better indicator of the presence of cute content. Further, the CAT measure is an effective means of categorizing cute attributes of social media content. These results suggest potential differences between in-person, online, and social media experiences evoking cute emotional reactions, and the need for metrics that are developed and validated for use in social media contexts.

Global heart warming: kama muta evoked by climate change messages is associated with intentions to mitigate climate change

Concern about climate change is often rooted in sympathy, compassion, and care for nature, living beings, and future generations. Feeling sympathy for others temporarily forms a bond between them and us: we focus on what we have in common and feel a sense of common destiny. Thus, we temporarily experience communal sharing relationships. A sudden intensification in communal sharing evokes an emotion termed kama muta, which may be felt through tearing up, a warm feeling in the chest, or goosebumps. We conducted four pre-registered studies (n = 1,049) to test the relationship between kama muta and pro-environmental attitudes, intentions, and behavior. In each study, participants first reported their attitudes about climate change. Then, they received climate change-related messages. In Study 1, they saw one of the two moving video clips about environmental concerns. In Study 2, participants listened to a more or less moving version of a story about a typhoon in the Philippines. In Study 3, they listened to a different, also moving version of this story or an unrelated talk. In Study 4, they watched either a factual or a moving video about climate change. Participants then indicated their emotional responses. Finally, they indicated their intentions for climate mitigation actions. In addition, we measured time spent reading about climate-related information (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and donating money (Study 4). Across all studies, we found that feelings of kama muta correlated positively with pro-environmental intentions (r = 0.48 [0.34, 0.62]) and behavior (r = 0.10 [0.0004, 0.20]). However, we did not obtain evidence for an experimental effect of the type of message (moving or neutral) on pro-environmental intentions (d = 0.04 [-0.09, 0.18]), though this relationship was significantly mediated by felt kama muta across Studies 2-4. The relationship was not moderated by prior climate attitudes, which had a main effect on intentions. We also found an indirect effect of condition through kama muta on donation behavior. In sum, our results contribute to the question of whether kama muta evoked by climate-change messages can be a motivating force in efforts at climate-change mitigation.

Searching, Navigating, and Recommending Movies through Emotions: A Scoping Review

Movies offer viewers a broad range of emotional experiences, providing entertainment, and meaning. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we reviewed the literature on digital systems designed to help users search and browse movie libraries and offer recommendations based on emotional content. Our search yielded 83 eligible documents (published between 2000 and 2021). We identified 22 case studies, 34 empirical studies, 26 proof of concept, and one theoretical paper. User transactions (e.g., ratings, tags) were the preferred source of information. The documents examined approached emotions from both a categorical ( $n=35$ ) and dimensional ( $n=18$ ) perspectives, and nine documents offer a combination of both approaches. Although there are several authors mentioned, the references used are frequently dated, and 12 documents do not mention author or model used. We identified 61 words related to emotion or affect. Documents presented on average 1.36 positive terms and 2.64 negative terms. Sentiment analysis ( $n=31$ ) is frequently used for emotion identification, followed by subjective evaluations ( $n=15$ ), movie low-level audio and visual features (n = 11), and face recognition technologies ( $n=8$ ). We discuss limitations and offer a brief review of current emotion models and research.

Lay conceptions of "being moved" ("bewegt sein") include a joyful and a sad type: Implications for theory and research

Being moved has received increased attention in emotion psychology as a social emotion that fosters bonds between individuals and within communities. This increased attention, however, has also sparked debates about whether the term "being moved" refers to a single distinct profile of emotion components or rather to a range of different emotion profiles. We addressed this question by investigating lay conceptions of the emotion components (i.e., elicitors, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings, bodily symptoms, and consequences for thought/action) of "bewegt sein" (the German term for "being moved"). Participants (N = 106) provided written descriptions of both a moving personal experience and their conceptual prototype of "being moved," which were subjected to content analysis to obtain quantitative data for statistical analyses. Based on latent class analyses, we identified two classes for both the personal experiences (joyfully-moved and sadly-moved classes) and the being-moved prototype (basic-description and extended-description classes). Being joyfully moved occurred when social values and positive relationship experiences were salient. Being sadly moved was elicited by predominantly negative relationship experiences and negatively salient social values. For both classes, the most frequently reported consequences for thought/action were continued cognitive engagement, finding meaning, and increased valuation of and striving for connectedness/prosociality. Basic descriptions of the prototype included "being moved" by positive or negative events as instances of the same emotion, with participants in the extended-description class also reporting joy and sadness as associated emotions. Based on our findings and additional theoretical considerations, we propose that the term "being moved" designates an emotion with an overall positive valence that typically includes blends of positively and negatively valenced emotion components, in which especially the weight of the negative components varies. The emotion's unifying core is that it involves feeling the importance of individuals, social entities, and abstract social values as sources of meaning in one's life.

Valence, sensations and appraisals co-occurring with feeling moved: evidence on kama muta theory from intra-individually cross-correlated time series

Emotional experiences typically labelled "being moved" or "feeling touched" may belong to one universal emotion. This emotion, which has been labelled "kama muta", is hypothesised to have a positive valence, be elicited by sudden intensifications of social closeness, and be accompanied by warmth, goosebumps and tears. Initial evidence on correlations among the kama muta components has been collected with self-reports after or during the emotion. Continuous measures during the emotion seem particularly informative, but previous work allows only restricted inferences on intra-individual processes because time series were cross-correlated across samples. In the current studies, we instead use a within-subject design to replicate and extend prior work. We compute intra-individual cross-correlations between continuous self-reports on feeling moved and (1) positive and negative affect; (2) goosebumps and subjective warmth and (3) appraisals of closeness and morality. Results confirm the predictions of kama muta theory that feeling moved by intensified communal sharing cross-correlates with appraised closeness, positive affect, warmth and (less so) goosebumps, but not with negative affect. Contrary to predictions, appraised morality cross-correlated with feeling moved as much as appraised closeness did. We conclude that strong inferences on emotional processes are possible using continuous measures, replace earlier findings, and are largely in line with theorising.

Emotional processes, collective behavior, and social movements: A meta-analytic review of collective effervescence outcomes during collective gatherings and demonstrations

In this article, we review the conceptions of Collective Effervescence (CE) –a state of intense shared emotional activation and sense of unison that emerges during instances of collective behavior, like demonstrations, rituals, ceremonies, celebrations, and others– and empirical approaches oriented at measuring it. The first section starts examining Émile Durkheim's classical conception on CE, and then, the integrative one proposed by the sociologist Randall Collins, leading to a multi-faceted experience of synchronization. Then, we analyze the construct as a process emerging in collective encounters when individuals contact with social ideal and values, referring to the classical work of Serge Moscovici as well as those more recent empirical approaches. Third, we consider CE as a set of intense positive emotions linked to processes of group identification, as proposed by authors of the Social Identity Theory tradition. Finally, we describe CE from the perspective of self-transcendence (e.g., emotions, experiences), and propose a unified description of this construct. The second section shows the results of a meta-analytical integration (k = 50, N = 182,738) aimed at analyzing CE's proximal effects or construct validity (i.e., Individual Emotions and Communal Sharing) as well as its association with more distal variables, such as Collective Emotions, Social Integration, Social Values and Beliefs and Empowerment. Results indicate that CE strongly associates with Individual Emotions –in particular, Self-Transcendent Emotions– and Communal Sharing constructs (e.g., Group Identity, Fusion of Identity), providing construct validity. Among the distal effects of CE, it is associated with Collective Positive Emotions, long-term Social Integration (e.g., Ingroup Commitment), Social Values and Beliefs and Empowerment-related variables (e.g., Wellbeing, Collective Efficacy, Collective Self-Esteem). Among the moderation analyses carried out (e.g., study design, CE scale, type of collective gathering), the effects of CE in demonstrations are noticeable, where this variable is a factor that favors other variables that make collective action possible, such as Group Identity (rpooled = 0.52), Collective Efficacy (rpooled = 0.37), Negative and Self-Transcendent Emotions (rpooled = 0.14 and 0.58), and Morality-related beliefs (rpooled = 0.43).

The physiological study of emotional piloerection: A systematic review and guide for future research

This paper provides an accessible review of the biological and psychological evidence to guide new and experienced researchers in the study of emotional piloerection in humans. A limited number of studies have attempted to examine the physiological and emotional correlates of piloerection in humans. However, no review has attempted to collate this evidence to guide the field as it moves forward. We first discuss the mechanisms and function of non-emotional and emotional piloerection in humans and animals. We discuss the biological foundations of piloerection as a means to understand the similarities and differences between emotional and non-emotional piloerection. We then present a systematic qualitative review (k = 24) in which we examine the physiological correlates of emotional piloerection. The analysis revealed that indices of sympathetic activation are abundant, suggesting emotional piloerection occurs with increased (phasic) skin conductance and heart rate. Measures of parasympathetic activation are lacking and no definite conclusions can be drawn. Additionally, several studies examined self-reported emotional correlates, and these correlates are discussed in light of several possible theoretical explanations for emotional piloerection. Finally, we provide an overview of the methodological possibilities available for the study of piloerection and we highlight some pressing questions researchers may wish to answer in future studies.

Moved to Norway, Then Moved by Norway: How Moments of Kama Muta Is Related With Immigrants’ Acculturation

In this paper, we investigated the relation between a positive social emotion, kama muta, and immigrants’ acculturation to Norway. Kama muta is evoked by a sudden intensification of a communal sharing relationship. Since communal sharing relationships are characterized by feeling one with others and orienting one’s actions to something they have in common, we predicted that feeling kama muta about Norway or Norwegians would enhance immigrants’ motivation to adopt Norwegian culture. We investigated this with exploratory sequential mixed methods: In Study 1, we interviewed 18 immigrants in Norway to understand in which situations the emotional experience, that can be identified as kama muta, occurs in connection to Norway and Norwegians, and how this affects acculturation to Norwegian culture. Based on the results of Study 1, we developed prompts that assessed immigrants’ kama muta experiences in connection with Norway and formulated hypotheses relating to immigrants’ bicultural identity integration, acculturation motivations, motivation to stay, and acculturative stress. In Study 2 we quantitively assessed these hypotheses in a larger sample of immigrants to Norway ( N = 142). The frequency and intensity of kama muta experiences in connection with Norway uniquely predicted immigrants’ motivation to adopt Norwegian culture, and negatively predicted acculturative stress. This suggests that kama muta can connect immigrants to their new homeland.

Musical Enjoyment and Reward: From Hedonic Pleasure to Eudaimonic Listening

This article is a hypothesis and theory paper. It elaborates on the possible relation between music as a stimulus and its possible effects, with a focus on the question of why listeners are experiencing pleasure and reward. Though it is tempting to seek for a causal relationship, this has proven to be elusive given the many intermediary variables that intervene between the actual impingement on the senses and the reactions/responses by the listener. A distinction can be made, however, between three elements: (i) an objective description of the acoustic features of the music and their possible role as elicitors; (ii) a description of the possible modulating factors—both external/exogenous and internal/endogenous ones; and (iii) a continuous and real-time description of the responses by the listener, both in terms of their psychological reactions and their physiological correlates. Music listening, in this broadened view, can be considered as a multivariate phenomenon of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that, together, shape the overall, full-fledged experience. In addition to an overview of the current and extant research on musical enjoyment and reward, we draw attention to some key methodological problems that still complicate a full description of the musical experience. We further elaborate on how listening may entail both adaptive and maladaptive ways of coping with the sounds, with the former allowing a gentle transition from mere hedonic pleasure to eudaimonic enjoyment.

The CODA Model: A Review and Skeptical Extension of the Constructionist Model of Emotional Episodes Induced by Music

This paper discusses contemporary advancements in the affective sciences (described together as skeptical theories) that can inform the music-emotion literature. Key concepts in these theories are outlined, highlighting their points of agreement and disagreement. This summary shows the importance of appraisal within the emotion process, provides a greater emphasis upon goal-directed accounts of (emotion) behavior, and a need to move away from discrete emotion “folk” concepts and toward the study of an emotional episode and its components. Consequently, three contemporary music emotion theories (BRECVEMA, Multifactorial Process Approach, and a Constructionist Account) are examined through a skeptical lens. This critique highlights the over-reliance upon categorization and a lack of acknowledgment of appraisal processes, specifically goal-directed appraisal, in examining how individual experiences of music emerge in different contexts. Based on this critique of current music-emotion models, we present our skeptically informed CODA model - Constructivistly-Organised Dimensional-Appraisal model. This model addresses skeptical limitations of existing theories, reinstates the role of goal-directed appraisal as central to what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual in different contexts and brings together different theoretical frameworks into a single model. From the development of the CODA model, several hypotheses are proposed and applied to musical contexts. These hypotheses address theoretical issues such as acknowledging individual and contextual differences in emotional intensity and valence, as well as differentiating between induced and perceived emotions, and utilitarian and aesthetic emotions. We conclude with a sections of recommendations for future research. Altogether, this theoretical critique and proposed model points toward a positive future direction for music-emotion science. One where researchers can take forward testable predictions about what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual.

A Special Class of Experience: Positive Affect Evoked by Music and the Arts

A positive experience in response to a piece of music or a work of art (hence ‘music/art’) has been linked to health and wellbeing outcomes but can often be reported as indescribable (ineffable), creating challenges for research. What do these positive experiences feel like, beyond ‘positive’? How are loved works that evoke profoundly negative emotions explained? To address these questions, two simultaneously occurring classes of experience are proposed: the ‘emotion class’ of experience (ECE) and the positive ‘affect class’ of experience (PACE). ECE consists of conventional, discrete, and communicable emotions with a reasonably well-established lexicon. PACE relates to a more private world of prototypical aesthetic emotions and experiences investigated in positive psychology. After a review of the literature, this paper proposes that PACE consists of physical correlates (tears, racing heart…) and varied amounts of ‘hedonic tone’ (HT), which range from shallow, personal leanings (preference, liking, attraction, etc.) to deep ones that include awe, being-moved, thrills, and wonder. PACE is a separate, simultaneously activated class of experience to ECE. The approach resolves long-standing debates about powerful, positive experiences taking place during negative emotion evocation by music/art. A list of possible terms for describing PACE is proposed.

Moved by Social Justice: The Role of Kama Muta in Collective Action Toward Racial Equality

Participation in collective action is known to be driven by two appraisals of a social situation: Beliefs that the situation is unfair (injustice appraisal) and beliefs that a group can change the situation (collective efficacy appraisal). Anger has been repeatedly found to mediate the relationship between injustice appraisals and collective action. Recent work suggests that the emotion of being moved mediates the relationship between efficacy appraisals and collective action. Building on this prior work, the present research applies kama muta theory to further investigate the relationship between efficacy appraisals and collective action. Kama muta is a positive emotion that is evoked by a sudden intensification of communal sharing, and largely overlaps with the English concept being moved. We investigated its relationship with collective action in both advantaged and disadvantaged racial groups in the context of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) in Spring of 2020. In one pilot study (N = 78) and one main study (N = 215), we confirmed that anger toward the system of racial inequalities mediated between injustice and collective action intentions, and that kama muta toward the movement mediated between collective efficacy and collective action intentions. Both mediations were found for both Black and White participants. We also observed additional unpredicted paths from anger to kama muta and from efficacy to anger. Together, this provides evidence for the pivotal role of emotions in collective action intentions, but also points out that appraisals need to be better understood.

Feeling moved by music: Investigating continuous ratings and acoustic correlates

The experience often described as feeling moved, understood chiefly as a social-relational emotion with social bonding functions, has gained significant research interest in recent years. Although listening to music often evokes what people describe as feeling moved, very little is known about the appraisals or musical features contributing to the experience. In the present study, we investigated experiences of feeling moved in response to music using a continuous rating paradigm. A total of 415 US participants completed an online experiment where they listened to seven moving musical excerpts and rated their experience while listening. Each excerpt was randomly coupled with one of seven rating scales (perceived sadness, perceived joy, feeling moved or touched, sense of connection, perceived beauty, warmth [in the chest], or chills) for each participant. The results revealed that musically evoked experiences of feeling moved are associated with a similar pattern of appraisals, physiological sensations, and trait correlations as feeling moved by videos depicting social scenarios (found in previous studies). Feeling moved or touched by both sadly and joyfully moving music was associated with experiencing a sense of connection and perceiving joy in the music, while perceived sadness was associated with feeling moved or touched only in the case of sadly moving music. Acoustic features related to arousal contributed to feeling moved only in the case of joyfully moving music. Finally, trait empathic concern was positively associated with feeling moved or touched by music. These findings support the role of social cognitive and empathic processes in music listening, and highlight the social-relational aspects of feeling moved or touched by music.

Emotional Campaigning in Politics: Being Moved and Anger in Political Ads Motivate to Support Candidate and Party

Political advertising to recruit the support of voters is an inherent part of politics. Today, ads are distributed via television and online, including social media. This type of advertisement attempts to recruit support by presenting convincing arguments and evoking various emotions about the candidate, opponents, and policy proposals. We discuss recent arguments and evidence that a specific social emotion, namely the concept kama muta, plays a role in political advertisements. In vernacular language, kama muta is typically labeled as being moved or touched. We compare kama muta and anger theoretically and discuss how they can influence voters’ willingness to support a candidate. We then, for the first time, compare kama muta and anger empirically in the same study. Specifically, we showed American participants short political ads during the 2018 United States midterm election campaigns. All participants saw both kama muta- and anger-evoking ads from both Democratic or Republican candidates. In total, everybody watched eight ads. We assessed participants’ degree of being moved and angered by the videos and their motivation for three types of political support: ideational, financial, and personal. The emotional impact of an ad depended on its perceived source: Participants felt especially angry after watching the anger-evoking ads and especially moved by moving ads if they identified with the political party that had produced the video. Both emotions mediated were associated with increased intentions to provide support. Importantly, if one of the two emotions was evoked, its effect on political support was enhanced if participants identified with the party that had produced the ad. We discuss limitations of the method and implications of the results for future research and practice.

Moving political opponents closer: How kama muta can contribute to reducing the partisan divide in the US

Dislike of political opponents has increased over the past years in the US. This paper presents a preregistered study investigating the effect of kama muta (being moved by sudden closeness) on increasing warmth, social closeness, and trust toward political opponents through including them in a common American identity. Eight hundred forty-one U.S. Americans watched either a moving or a neutral video about the US or a different theme in a full-factorial design. We found main effects of emotion and theme on the increase of warmth, social closeness, and trust toward political opponents through viewing them as fellow Americans. Accordingly, the linear combination of moving U.S. videos showed the largest increase in warmth, social closeness, and trust. Exploratory analyses showed that moving U.S.-themed videos evoked the most kama muta from suddenly increasing one’s identification with the US. This suggests that kama muta is an important, and heretofore largely overlooked, emotional process promoting common in-group identification.

Existential threat as a challenge for individual and collective engagement: Climate change and the motivation to act

The global climate crisis can be perceived as a threat to existential human needs like control, certainty, and personal existence. These threat appraisals elicit an affective state of individual anxiety - one of the strongest motivators of individual pro-environmental behavior and collective policies and activism. Direct action against a threat is associated with other affective approach-motivated states that help to overcome anxiety: Recent findings show collective emotions of anger, guilt, and 'being moved' increase collective engagement but also show a positive relationship between positive activation and individual behavior. Climate threat furthermore promotes palliative responses, such as ingroup defense, identification with nature, or salient common humanity. Here, collective responses seem to reduce anxiety, and when combined with pro-environmental norms, even promote pro-environmental action.

Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Effects: Awe, Elevation and Kama Muta Promote a Human Identification and Motivations to Help Others

Abundant literature shows the effects of negative emotions on motivations to engage in collective action (i.e., to collectively mobilize personal resources to achieve a common objective), as well as their influence on the creation of shared identities. In this proposal, we focus on the possible role of Self-Transcendent Emotions (STEs) defined as positive-valence emotions that have been key in the creation and maintenance of collective identities, as well as in promoting individuals well-being. In detail, we examine their influence in (a) strengthening a global identification, (b) increasing willingness to collectively help others, and (c) improving people’s wellbeing. For this reason, we conducted a preliminary literature review of k = 65 independent studies on the effects of STEs on connection to others. Through this review (fully available in Supplementary Materials), we selected a sample of STEs (Awe, Elevation, and Kama Muta) and elicitors to conduct a video-base study. In it, 1,064 university students from 3 different cultural regions (from Spain and Ecuador) were randomized to answer one of three STE scales (i.e., each measuring one of the selected STEs), and evaluate three videos in random order (i.e., each prototypical for the selected STEs). Participants also answered a measure of global identification and intentions to collectively help others (after each video), as well as self-transcendent and well-being (at the end of the survey). Results from SEM analyses show these STEs motivated a fusion of identity with all humanity, as well as collective intentions to help others, even controlling for individuals’ value orientations. In addition, the three of them indirectly increased participants’ well-being through a higher global identity. While there are differences among them, these three STEs share common elements and their effects are constant across the different cultural regions. It is concluded that Awe, Elevation, and Kama Muta, even individually experienced, have a significant potential to influence people’s behavior. Specifically, in various forms of collective action aimed at helping others.

Do People Agree on How Positive Emotions Are Expressed? A Survey of Four Emotions and Five Modalities Across 11 Cultures

While much is known about how negative emotions are expressed in different modalities, our understanding of the nonverbal expressions of positive emotions remains limited. In the present research, we draw upon disparate lines of theoretical and empirical work on positive emotions, and systematically examine which channels are thought to be used for expressing four positive emotions: feeling moved, gratitude, interest, and triumph. Employing the intersubjective approach, an established method in cross-cultural psychology, we first explored how the four positive emotions were reported to be expressed in two North American community samples (Studies 1a and 1b: n = 1466). We next confirmed the cross-cultural generalizability of our findings by surveying respondents from ten countries that diverged on cultural values (Study 2: n = 1826). Feeling moved was thought to be signaled with facial expressions, gratitude with the use of words, interest with words, face and voice, and triumph with body posture, vocal cues, facial expressions, and words. These findings provide cross-culturally consistent findings of differential expressions across positive emotions. Notably, positive emotions were thought to be expressed via modalities that go beyond the face.

Why Hypothesis Testers Should Spend Less Time Testing Hypotheses

For almost half a century, Paul Meehl educated psychologists about how the mindless use of null-hypothesis significance tests made research on theories in the social sciences basically uninterpretable. In response to the replication crisis, reforms in psychology have focused on formalizing procedures for testing hypotheses. These reforms were necessary and influential. However, as an unexpected consequence, psychological scientists have begun to realize that they may not be ready to test hypotheses. Forcing researchers to prematurely test hypotheses before they have established a sound "derivation chain" between test and theory is counterproductive. Instead, various nonconfirmatory research activities should be used to obtain the inputs necessary to make hypothesis tests informative. Before testing hypotheses, researchers should spend more time forming concepts, developing valid measures, establishing the causal relationships between concepts and the functional form of those relationships, and identifying boundary conditions and auxiliary assumptions. Providing these inputs should be recognized and incentivized as a crucial goal in itself. In this article, we discuss how shifting the focus to nonconfirmatory research can tie together many loose ends of psychology's reform movement and help us to develop strong, testable theories, as Paul Meehl urged.

Musical and Bodily Predictors of Mental Effort in String Quartet Music: An Ecological Pupillometry Study of Performers and Listeners

Music performance can be cognitively and physically demanding. These demands vary across the course of a performance as the content of the music changes. More demanding passages require performers to focus their attention more intensity, or expend greater “mental effort.” To date, it remains unclear what effect different cognitive-motor demands have on performers' mental effort. It is likewise unclear how fluctuations in mental effort compare between performers and perceivers of the same music. We used pupillometry to examine the effects of different cognitive-motor demands on the mental effort used by performers and perceivers of classical string quartet music. We collected pupillometry, motion capture, and audio-video recordings of a string quartet as they performed a rehearsal and concert (for live audience) in our lab. We then collected pupillometry data from a remote sample of musically-trained listeners, who heard the audio recordings (without video) that we captured during the concert. We used a modelling approach to assess the effects of performers' bodily effort (head and arm motion; sound level; performers' ratings of technical difficulty), musical complexity (performers' ratings of harmonic complexity; a score-based measure of harmonic tension), and expressive difficulty (performers' ratings of expressive difficulty) on performers' and listeners' pupil diameters. Our results show stimulating effects of bodily effort and expressive difficulty on performers' pupil diameters, and stimulating effects of expressive difficulty on listeners' pupil diameters. We also observed negative effects of musical complexity on both performers and listeners, and negative effects of performers' bodily effort on listeners, which we suggest may reflect the complex relationships that these features share with other aspects of musical structure. Looking across the concert, we found that both of the quartet violinists (who exchanged places halfway through the concert) showed more dilated pupils during their turns as 1st violinist than when playing as 2nd violinist, suggesting that they experienced greater arousal when “leading” the quartet in the 1st violin role. This study shows how eye tracking and motion capture technologies can be used in combination in an ecological setting to investigate cognitive processing in music performance.

Corona Concerts: The Effect of Virtual Concert Characteristics on Social Connection and Kama Muta

The popularity of virtual concerts increased as a result of the social distancing requirements of the coronavirus pandemic. We aimed to examine how the characteristics of virtual concerts and the characteristics of the participants influenced their experiences of social connection and kama muta (often labeled “being moved”). We hypothesized that concert liveness and the salience of the coronavirus would influence social connection and kama muta. We collected survey responses on a variety of concert and personal characteristics from 307 participants from 13 countries across 4 continents. We operationalized social connection as a combination of feelings and behaviors and kama muta was measured using the short kama muta scale (Zickfeld et al., 2019). We found that (1) social connection and kama muta were related and predicted by empathic concern, (2) live concerts produced more social connection, but not kama muta, than pre-recorded concerts, and (3) the salience of the coronavirus during concerts predicted kama muta and this effect was completely mediated by social connection. Exploratory analyses also examined the influence of social and physical presence, motivations for concert attendance, and predictors of donations. This research contributes to the understanding of how people can connect socially and emotionally in virtual environments.

Effects of Compassion Training on Brain Responses to Suffering other

Compassion meditation (CM) is a promising intervention for enhancing compassion, although its active ingredients and neurobiological mechanisms are not well-understood. To investigate these, we conducted a three-armed placebo-controlled randomized trial (N = 57) with longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We compared a 4-week CM program delivered by smartphone application with (i) a placebo condition, presented to participants as the compassion-enhancing hormone oxytocin, and (ii) a condition designed to control for increased familiarity with suffering others, an element of CM which may promote compassion. At pre- and post-intervention, participants listened to compassion-eliciting narratives describing suffering others during fMRI. CM increased brain responses to suffering others in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) relative to the familiarity condition, p < 0.05 family-wise error rate corrected. Among CM participants, individual differences in increased mOFC responses positively correlated with increased compassion-related feelings and attributions, r = 0.50, p = 0.04. Relative to placebo, the CM group exhibited a similar increase in mOFC activity at an uncorrected threshold of P < 0.001 and 10 contiguous voxels. We conclude that the mOFC, a region closely related to affiliative affect and motivation, is an important brain mechanism of CM. Effects of CM on mOFC function are not explained by familiarity effects and are partly explained by placebo effects.

Why and How Should Cognitive Science Care about Aesthetics?

Empirical aesthetics has found its way into mainstream cognitive science. Until now, most research has focused either on identifying the internal processes that underlie a perceiver's aesthetic experience or on identifying the stimulus features that lead to a specific type of aesthetic experience. To progress, empirical aesthetics must integrate these approaches into a unified paradigm that encourages researchers to think in terms of temporal dynamics and interactions between: (i) the stimulus and the perceiver; (ii) different systems within the perceiver; and (iii) different layers of the stimulus. At this critical moment, empirical aesthetics must also clearly identify and define its key concepts, sketch out its agenda, and specify its approach to grow into a coherent and distinct discipline.

Proper understanding of grounded procedures of separation needs a dual inheritance approach

Grounded procedures of separation are conceptualized as a learned concept. The simultaneous cultural universality of the general idea and immense diversity of its implementations might be better understood through the lens of dual inheritance theories. By drawing on examples from developmental psychology and emotion theorizing, we argue that an innate blueprint might underlie learned implementations of cleansing that vary widely.

Emotions as Overlapping Causal Networks of Emotion Components: Implications and Methodological Approaches

A widespread perspective describes emotions as distinct categories bridged by fuzzy boundaries, indicating that emotions are distinct and dimensional at the same time. Theoretical and methodological approaches to this perspective still need further development. We conceptualize emotions as overlapping networks of causal relationships between emotion components—networks representing distinct emotions share components with and relate to each other. To investigate this conceptualization, we introduce network analysis to emotion research and apply it to the reanalysis of a data set on multiple positive emotions. Specifically, we describe the estimation of networks from data, and the detection of overlapping communities of nodes in these networks. The network perspective has implications for the understanding of distinct emotions, their co-occurrence, and their measurement.

Kindness Media Rapidly Inspires Viewers and Increases Happiness, Calm, Gratitude, and Generosity in a Healthcare Setting

Background and Objectives: Stress is a ubiquitous aspect of modern life that affects both mental and physical health. Clinical care settings can be particularly stressful for both patients and providers. Kindness and compassion are buffers for the negative effects of stress, likely through strengthening positive interpersonal connection. In previous laboratory-based studies, simply watching kindness media uplifts (elevates) viewers, increases altruism, and promotes connection to others. The objective of the present study is to examine whether kindness media can affect viewers in a real-world, pediatric healthcare setting. Methods: Parents and staff in a pediatric dental clinic were studied. Study days were randomized for viewers to watch either original kindness media or the standard televised children's programming that the clinic shows. Participants scored self-rated pre-media emotions in a survey, watched either media type for 8 min, and then completed the survey. All participants were informed that they would receive a gift card for their participation. After completion of the survey, participants were asked if they wanted to keep the card or donate it to a family in need. Results: Fifty (50) participants completed the study; 28 were parents and 22 were staff. In comparison to viewers of children's programming, participants who watched kindness media had significant increases in feeling happy, calmer, more grateful, and less irritated (p < 0.05), with trends observed in feeling more optimistic and less anxious. Kindness media caused marked increases in viewers' reports of feeling inspired, moved, or touched (p < 0.001). No change was observed in self-reported compassion, although baseline levels were self-rated as very high. People who watched kindness media were also more generous, with 85% donating their honoraria compared to 54% of Standard viewers (p = 0.03). Conclusions: Kindness media can increase positive emotions and promote generosity in a healthcare setting.

Augmenting aesthetic chills using a wearable prosthesis improves their downstream effects on reward and social cognition

Previous studies on aesthetic chills (i.e., psychogenic shivers) demonstrate their positive effects on stress, pleasure, and social cognition. We tested whether we could artificially enhance this emotion and its downstream effects by intervening on its somatic markers using wearable technology. We built a device generating cold and vibrotactile sensations down the spine of subjects in temporal conjunction with a chill-eliciting audiovisual stimulus, enhancing the somatosensation of cold underlying aesthetic chills. Results suggest that participants wearing the device experienced significantly more chills, and chills of greater intensity. Further, these subjects reported sharing the feelings expressed in the stimulus to a greater degree, and felt more pleasure during the experience. These preliminary results demonstrate that emotion prosthetics and somatosensory interfaces offer new possibilities of modulating human emotions from the bottom-up (body to mind). Future challenges will include testing the device on a larger sample and diversifying the type of stimuli to account for negatively valenced chills and intercultural differences. Interoceptive technologies offer a new paradigm for affective neuroscience, allowing controlled intervention on conscious feelings and their downstream effects on higher-order cognition.

Tears of joy, aesthetic chills and heartwarming feelings: Physiological correlates of Kama Muta

Situations involving increased closeness or exceptional kindness are often labeled as moving or touching and individuals often report bodily symptoms, including tears, goosebumps, and warmth in the body. Recently, the kama muta framework has been proposed as a cross-cultural conceptualization of these experiences. Prior research on kama muta has mostly relied on subjective reports. Thus, our main goal of the present project was to examine the pattern of physiological responses to kama muta inducing videos and compare it to the patterns for the similar, though distinct emotions of sadness and awe. One hundred forty-four Portuguese and Norwegian participants were individually exposed to all three emotion conditions. Several psychophysiological indexes of the autonomic nervous system were collected continuously during exposure, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and electrodermal activity, facial EMG, skin temperature, as well as piloerection and lachrymation using cameras. Overall, the results partly replicated previous findings on being moved experiences and self-report studies. Strong self-reported experiences of kama muta were associated with increased phasic skin conductance, skin temperature, piloerection, and zygomaticus activity, while they were associated with reduced heart rate, respiration rate, and tonic skin conductance. The physiological profile of kama muta was successfully distinguished from sadness and awe, partly corroborating self-report evidence. We obtained no clear evidence of a kama muta association with the occurrence of lachrymation or heart rate variability. Our findings provide a systematic overview of psychophysiological response to experiences of kama muta, and help to inform future research on this emotion and positive emotions in general.

Perceived Emotional Synchrony in Collective Gatherings: Validation of a Short Scale and Proposition of an Integrative Measure

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in the relationship between participation in collective gatherings and rituals and different important psychosocial variables and processes, such as social sharing of emotions, group cohesion, identity fusion, prosocial tendencies and behaviors, and well-being (e.g., Rimé, 2009; Xygalatas et al., 2013; Khan et al., 2015; Páez et al., 2015). These studies, coming from different lines of research, have proposed diverse explanatory mechanisms to explain the positive social and psychological effects of collective gatherings. In the present article, we focus on one of these mechanisms, known as collective effervescence, emotional communion, emotional entrainment, or perceived emotional synchrony (PES). First, we briefly discuss current conceptions of the emotional states and experience during collective gatherings and what they bring to the definition of PES. We close this point by proposing an integrative definition of PES. Second, structural validity of the original PES scale is examined. Third, incremental validity of PES is examined in two longitudinal studies, particularly with respect to well-being. Finally, we propose an integrative short form of the PES Scale, which measures antecedents and behavioral effects of collective effervescence.

Moved by Observing the Love of Others: Kama Muta Evoked Through Media Fosters Humanization of Out-Groups

People often view out-groups as less human than their in-group. Some media video content is heart-warming and leaves one feeling touched or moved. Recent research indicates that this reflects a positive social emotion, kama muta, which is evoked by a sudden increase in interpersonal closeness, specifically by the relational model of communal sharing. Because forming strong, close, and communal bonds exemplifies valued human qualities, and because other humans are our primary target partners of communal sharing, we predicted that feeling kama muta in response to observing communal sharing among out-group strangers would make people view out-groups as more human. In Study 1, we replicated a model obtained through a large exploratory preliminary study which indicated that videos depicting out-group members enacting communal sharing evoked kama muta and increased protagonist humanization. This, in turn, led to decreased blatant dehumanization of the entire out-group via perceived out-group warmth and motivation to develop a communal sharing relationship with the protagonist. The preregistered Study 2 further tested our model, demonstrating (1) that the relationship between protagonist humanization and kama muta is bidirectional such that baseline humanization of the protagonist also increases feelings of kama muta in response to acts of communal sharing; (2) that watching videos of communal sharing, as compared to funny videos, increased protagonist humanization; and (3) that kama muta videos, compared to funny videos, had an indirect effect on the reduction of out-group blatant dehumanization, which was mediated by protagonist humanization and out-group warmth.

Why Do We Watch? The Role of Emotion Gratifications and Individual Differences in Predicting Rewatchability and Movie Recommendation

BACKGROUND

The present study's main aim was to determine the predictors of movie rewatchability and recommendations.

METHODS

Using a sample of 318 participants, we first tested the structure of a gratification scale from watching a movie. Then, we examined the role of age, need for cognition, need for affect, extraversion, and emotional gratifications, in predicting individuals' interest in rewatching the movie and in making recommendations.

RESULTS

As in the original proposal of the emotional gratification scale, the following dimensions were identified: fun, thrill, empathic sadness, release of emotions, social sharing, contemplative experiences, and character engagement, with acceptable model fit and reliability, convergent and divergent validity. Social sharing, contemplate experiences, need for affect and age were significant predictors of movie recommendation; whereas social sharing, thrill, extraversion, and age contributed most to explaining rewatching interest.

CONCLUSION

This study highlights the importance of considering distinct gratifications and individual differences in predicting rewatching and movie recommendation.

The Role of Social Relational Emotions for Human-Nature Connectedness

Little is known about the psychological processes through which people connect to nature. From social psychology, we know that emotions play an essential role when connecting to others. In this article, we argue that social connectedness and connectedness to nature are underpinned by the same emotions. More specifically, we propose that social relational emotions are crucial to understanding the process through which humans connect to nature. Beside other emotions, kama muta (Sanskrit: being moved by love) might play a particular crucial role when connecting to nature. Future research should consider the role of social relational emotions in human-nature relationships.

Beliefs About Emotion Are Tied to Beliefs About Gender: The Case of Men’s Crying in Competitive Sports

Gender and emotion stereotypes suggest that men do not and should not cry, yet men’s crying seems to be particularly prominent in contexts such as competitive sports. In two studies, I investigated the possibility that men’s crying is more frequent and seen as more acceptable in these settings because such contexts are perceived to be highly masculine, and can buffer men from the negative consequences associated with violating gender stereotypes. Specifically, I tested the hypotheses that (a) observers would perceive men’s crying more positively in a masculine-stereotyped than a feminine-stereotyped setting, and following from this, (b) men would report being more likely to shed tears in a stereotypically masculine than a stereotypically feminine setting. To test these predictions, I conducted two between-subjects experiments in which participants (N = 250; N = 192), read a vignette about a man or a woman crying in either a stereotypically masculine (firefighting, weightlifting) or stereotypically feminine (nursing, figure skating) setting, and then rated the target on several emotion-related dependent variables. In line with predictions, results of Study 1 indicated that participants rated crying male firefighters as more emotionally appropriate, emotionally strong, and as higher in workplace status than crying male nurses, and that these effects were mediated by perceptions of the target’s masculinity and femininity. Study 2 replicated these effects using sports-related vignettes, and showed that male participants reported being more likely to shed tears after losing a competition in weightlifting than in figure-skating. Taken together, these findings suggest that men who are perceived to embody cultural ideals of masculinity may be given more room to cry than those who are perceived as less stereotypically masculine.

What Evokes Being Moved?

Recent attempts to define being moved have difficulties agreeing on its eliciting conditions. The status quaestionis is often summarized as a question of whether the emotion is evoked by exemplifications of a wide range of positive core values or a more restricted set of values associated with attachment. This conclusion is premature. Study participants associate being moved with interactions with their loved ones not merely for what they exemplify but also for their affective bond to them. Being moved is elicited when we apprehend the value of entities to which we are connected through basic as well as extended forms of affiliative attachment. These comprise people, certain objects, and even abstract entities, including the unshakable life-guiding ideas we call “core values.”

Data from the Human Penguin Project, a cross-national dataset testing social thermoregulation principles

In the Human Penguin Project (N = 1755), 15 research groups from 12 countries collected body temperature, demographic variables, social network indices, seven widely-used psychological scales and two newly developed questionnaires (the Social Thermoregulation and Risk Avoidance Questionnaire (STRAQ-1) and the Kama Muta Frequency Scale (KAMF)). They were collected to investigate the relationship between environmental factors (e.g., geographical, climate etc.) and human behaviors, which is a long-standing inquiry in the scientific community. More specifically, the present project was designed to test principles surrounding the idea of social thermoregulation, which posits that social networks help people to regulate their core body temperature. The results showed that all scales in the current project have sufficient to good psychometrical properties. Unlike previous crowdsourced projects, this dataset includes not only the cleaned raw data but also all the validation of questionnaires in 9 different languages, thus providing a valuable resource for psychological scientists who are interested in cross-national, environment-human interaction studies.

Too Cute for Words: Cuteness Evokes the Heartwarming Emotion of Kama Muta

A configuration of infantile attributes including a large head, large eyes, with a small nose and mouth low on the head comprise the visual baby schema or Kindchenschema that English speakers call “cute.” In contrast to the stimulus gestalt that evokes it, the evoked emotional response to cuteness has been little studied, perhaps because the emotion has no specific name in English, Norwegian, or German. We hypothesize that cuteness typically evokes kama muta, a social-relational emotion that in other contexts is often labeled in English as being moved or touched, heartwarming, nostalgia, patriotic feeling, being touched by the Spirit, the feels, etcetera. What evokes kama muta is sudden intensification of a communal sharing (CS) relationship, either CS between the person and another, or CS between observed others. In accord with kama muta theory, we hypothesize that a kama muta response to cuteness results from a sudden feeling of CS with the cute target. In colloquial terms, the perceiver adores the cute kittens and their heart goes out to them. When a person perceives cute targets interacting affectionately – that is, intensifying CS between them – this should strengthen a kama muta response. We experimentally investigated these predictions in two studies (N = 356). Study 1 revealed that videos of cute targets evoked significantly more kama muta than videos of targets that were not particularly cute. Study 2, pre-registered, found that, as hypothesized, when cute targets interacted affectionately they evoked more kama muta and were humanized more than when they were not interacting. We measured the level of kama muta by self-reports of sensations and signs and of feelings labeled heartwarming, being moved, and being touched. Participants’ ratings of kama muta were positively correlated with reported cuteness. In addition, as in our previous research on kama muta elicited by other types of stimuli, trait empathic concern predicted kama muta responses and perceived cuteness. The studies thus provide first evidence that cute stimuli evoke the heartwarming emotion of kama muta.

Moving Through the Literature: What Is the Emotion Often Denoted Being Moved?

When do people say that they are moved, and does this experience constitute a unique emotion? We review theory and empirical research on being moved across psychology and philosophy. We examine feeling labels, elicitors, valence, bodily sensations, and motivations. We find that the English lexeme being moved typically (but not always) refers to a distinct and potent emotion that results in social bonding; often includes tears, piloerection, chills, or a warm feeling in the chest; and is often described as pleasurable, though sometimes as a mixed emotion. While we conclude that it is a distinct emotion, we also recommend studying it in a more comprehensive emotion framework, instead of using the ambiguous vernacular term being moved as a scientific term.