COMMENTARY

Finding the self in self-transcendent emotions

Jonathan Haidt1 and James P. Morris Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904

motion research has something and excellences of others, except to the sentiments as much as any similar inci- in common with a drunk search- extent that they help us or bond with dent which real history can furnish.’’ ing for his car keys under a us? Are there any emotions that tran- Only in the last year has any empirical street lamp. ‘‘Where did you scend self-interest? evidence for elevation been published, loseE them?’’ asks the cop. ‘‘In the alley,’’ Yes, there are: elevation and admira- demonstrating that moral elevation mo- says the drunk, ‘‘but the light is so much tion, as well as compassion, which we tivates people to emulate role models, better over here.’’ For emotion research, will not focus on here because it is not do good deeds, and become more inter- the light shines most brightly on the new; it has long been a topic of psycho- ested in relationships (10). In the stron- face, whose movements can be coded, logical discussion (7) and is now a major gest behavioral finding, moral elevation compared across cultures, and quanti- area of neurological work as well (8, 9). caused lactating women to hug and fied by electromyography. All of the [We note, however, that compassion is nurse their infants (12), suggesting the ‘‘basic’’ emotions described by Paul Ek- often mislabeled as ‘‘empathy.’’ Empa- possible involvement of the hormone man (1) and others (happiness, sadness, thy is the ability to take another’s per- oxytocin. Something really is going on in anger, fear, surprise, and disgust) earned spective and then feel what the other the breast, although of course Jefferson their place on the list by being face- feels, whether that be joy, sadness, or was referring to the chest cavity more valid. The second source of illumination generally. Moral elevation has been de- has long been animal research. Emo- fined as the emotional response to tions that can be reliably triggered in Brain areas related to moral beauty (13). rats, such as fear and anger, have been Elevation is clearly the emotion being well-studied, down to specific pathways introceptive processing elicited by Immordino-Yang et al. (3) in through the amygdala (2). But emotions their ‘‘admiration for virtue’’ condition, that cannot be found on the face or in a may be more in which they showed participants care- rat, such as moral elevation and admira- fully selected video clips and images re- tion, are largely abandoned back in the active during lating to true stories of courage, charity, alley. We know they are there, but no- and self-sacrifice. In fact, their elicita- body can seem to find a flashlight. It is self-transcendence. tion method deserves praise for solving therefore quite an achievement that, a problem in elevation research: reac- as described in this issue of PNAS, tions to elevating stories are more idio- Immordino-Yang, McCall, Damasio, and boredom. Empathy itself is not an iden- syncratic than are the elicitors used to Damasio (3) managed to drag an fMRI tifiable feeling. Compassion, in contrast, study many other emotions. Nearly all scanner back there and have given us a is the feeling of being moved by participants will react with disgust to an first glimpse of the neurological under- another’s suffering (5). It is the feeling image of excrement, but many partici- pinnings of elevation and admiration. induced in the 2 compassion conditions pants are unmoved by any particular To bring some order to the study of of Immordino-Yang et al. (3), who story of moral beauty. Some will find it emotions, psychologists have proposed showed images and told stories about trite. By asking each participant to pre- various schemes, mostly categorizations people suffering.] judge stories before entering the scan- of ‘‘cognitive appraisals,’’ the quick anal- The best descriptions we have so far ner, and then giving only brief reminder yses of the meaning of an event that are of the self-transcending ‘‘emotions of versions of each story in the scanner, said to trigger the rest of the emotional appreciation’’ (6) or ‘‘other-praising Immordino-Yang, et al., were able to response (4). One such scheme (5, 6) emotions’’ (10) come not from psycholo- pack several times as many stories into a for the moral emotions proposes a 2 ϫ gists but from keen observers of human normal scanning session and were then 2 contrast. Moral emotions are usually behavior (the former group has only able to limit their analyses to just those evaluations (good or bad) of a person, partial overlap with the latter). Thomas stories that each subject indicated (by and that person can be the self or an- Jefferson, for example, believed that button press) had produced emotional other person. Table 1 shows the 4 cells experiences while in the scanner. great literature can foster a young per- that result from this contrast, along with Admiration is a more general term son’s moral development by triggering the main emotions that fall into each than elevation, yet here too, psycholo- powerful and ‘‘elevating’’ sentiments: cell. Next to each emotion word is the gists have conducted almost no empiri- number of journal articles found in a When any. . . act of charity or of grat- cal research on admiration as an emo- recent search of the PsycInfo database. itude, for instance, is presented tion. [There is some work on admiration The most dramatic feature of Table 1 is either to our sight or imagination, we as a cognitive state, a reaction to self- that research on negative moral emo- are deeply impressed with its beauty comparisons with ‘‘superstars’’ (14).] tions is 15 times more common than and feel a strong desire in ourselves For a good description of admiration we research on positives. Another notewor- of doing charitable and grateful acts can turn to Darwin, a superb observer thy feature is that, even on the ‘‘praise- also. On the contrary when we see or of the emotions, who defined it as ‘‘sur- worthy’’ side, the only 2 emotions with Ͼ read of any atrocious deed, we are 40 articles are both closely linked to disgusted with its deformity and con- the self: pride (‘‘I did well and think ceive an abhorrence of vice (11). Author contributions: J.H. and J.P.M. wrote the paper. others think so too’’) and gratitude (‘‘I The authors declare no conflict of interest. like people who do good things for Jefferson noted that uplifting stories See companion article on page 8021. me’’). Can it really be the case that we cause a visceral reaction: They ‘‘dilate 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: do not have emotions about the virtues [the reader’s] breast, and elevate his [email protected].

www.pnas.org͞cgi͞doi͞10.1073͞pnas.0903076106 PNAS ͉ May 12, 2009 ͉ vol. 106 ͉ no. 19 ͉ 7687–7688 Downloaded by guest on September 30, 2021 Table 1. The main moral emotions (other than compassion), with number of articles in necessarily capture the difference be- the PsycINFO database for which the emotion name was in the title or keywords fields tween admiration for virtue (i.e., eleva- Appraisal of agent’s action tion) and admiration for skill. Admiring a person’s extraordinary skills, particu- Person Praiseworthy Blameworthy larly when those skills are not about musculoskeletal excellence (e.g., a su- Self Pride 247 Guilt 1,639 perb teacher), is very much a social Self-satisfaction 27 Shame 1,601 emotion. We would like to see the di- Other Gratitude 124 Anger 3,230 rect contrasts among all 4 conditions, Admiration 36 Disgust 306 and we would like to see future studies Elevation 2 Contempt 54 elicit admiration for skills that do not Journal articles were counted only on Sept. 1, 2008. Elevation produced hundreds of hits initially; all but involve so much movement. But if we 2 referred to elevation as the rising of a physical object or substance. assume that the contrasts between the 2 admiration conditions were similar to those reported for the merged social prise associated with some pleasure and brain areas related to introceptive pro- and physical conditions (an assumption a sense of approval’’ (15). The Oxford cessing may be more active during self- confirmed by M. H. Immordino-Yang, English Dictionary concurs: ‘‘Agreeable transcendence. Their study found that personal communication), then the way surprise; wonder mingled with rever- elevation and admiration (along with 2 is indeed open for a reading of self- ence, esteem, approbation.’’ These 2 kinds of compassion), when contrasted transcendence that is consistent with the definitions capture the stimuli used by to reactions to structurally similar but picture long advocated by Damasio (17). Immordino-Yang et al. (3) in their ‘‘ad- nonemotional stories about other peo- Perhaps our ‘‘higher’’ more cognitively miration for skill’’ condition, which in- ple, activated brain areas related to complex and uniquely human emotional cluded video clips of people doing internal regulation (e.g., hypothalamus, abilities (such as elevation and admira- amazing (but nonmoral) feats, such as mesencephalon, and anterior middle tion) are implemented by reusing older break-dancing or solving a Rubik’s cube cingulate cortex) and to sensing the systems, particularly systems involved in puzzle while blindfolded. The small body (e.g., anterior insula and supramar- representing and managing the body amount of extant behavioral work on ginal gyrus). Admiration and compas- itself. [Linguists have also noted that admiration as an emotion suggests that sion conditions, relative to neutral, also our richest metaphors tend to come admiration (for nonmoral excellence) engaged the posterior cingulate, retro- from our physical embodiment (18).] makes people feel energized and in- splenial cortex, and precuneus, a net- Emotions with a self-transcendent or spired to copy the role mode and to go work of structures referred to as the ‘‘spiritual’’ aspect to them, such as moral elevation, may therefore turn out forth and succeed in their own posteromedial cortices (PMC). In a sec- to be amplifications with subtle alter- endeavors (10, 16). Admiration, like ond contrast, which they called a con- ations, rather than suppressions, of our elevation, draws people out of their trast of the more ‘‘social’’ conditions carnal, embodied nature. ordinary state of consciousness; the (admiration for virtue and compassion The findings of Immordino-Yang et related motivational state of ‘‘inspiration’’ for social pain) with the more ‘‘physical’’ al. (3) do not prove this conclusion; in involves feelings of transcendence, which conditions (admiration for skill and fact, because of its small sample size has been defined as ‘‘orienting one toward compassion for physical pain) they and therefore inability to perform full something that is better or more impor- found that the social conditions pro- contrasts among the 4 conditions, it can- tant than one’s usual concerns’’ (16). duced more activation in posterior/infe- not be said to have proven anything. But If elevation and admiration really do rior PMC involved with introceptive so what? Given that nobody has yet had involve feelings of self-transcendence—a processing, whereas the physical condi- the resourcefulness to explore the dark reduction in attention to the often all- tions produced more activation in supe- alley of these difficult emotions, this consuming self and its goals—then a rior/anterior PMC regions critically in- first snapshot of what might be back simple-minded prediction would be that volved in the musculoskeletal system. there is an important contribution to the these emotions dampen brain activity in Our only criticism of this study is that study of emotions in general and affec- regions that map and track the self and we are not convinced that the most rele- tive neuroscience in particular. We ad- its bodily incarnation. But the findings vant contrast here is social vs. physical. mire their skill and hope others will be of Immordino-Yang et al. (3) suggest a Such a contrast works perfectly for their motivated to emulate them and extend much more interesting possibility: that 2 compassion conditions, but does not (or contradict) their findings.

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