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Elevation

After years of research on disgust, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studied and coined the term, elevation, to be the opposite of social disgust. When one witnesses acts of moral beauty or virtue, one can trigger elevation. This involves a warm, glowing feeling in the chest, and it makes people want to become morally better themselves because elevation increases one’s desire to affiliate with and help others.

Defining Elevation

History of moral beauty

Throughout the course of Western history, many philosophers have argued for the centrality and importance of beauty. Many cultures value aesthetics or have a standard for beauty, even if those standards may vary greatly among cultures.

Western philosophers have focused more on the beauty in art than on the beauty in nature, but philosophers have addressed beauty in nature as well. Kant was emphatic about differentiating a love of natural beauty from a love of artistic beauty. Kant argued that love of the beautiful in art provided no evidence that a person was inclined to be a good human being, yet he thought that an interest in the beauty of nature was always a sign of a “good soul,” also known as good morals. Another philosopher writes, “it seems that what is beautiful is the same as what is good, and in fact in various historical periods there was a close link between the Beautiful and the Good.”

The psychological difference between viewing something as moral goodness and moral beauty is emotional response and motivation. A person may identify as moral goodness but may remain un-elevated. If, however, he refers to the same act of moral goodness as an act of moral beauty, it implies that the observer’s emotions have been engaged by the morally good act and that he or she feels moved and elevated. Thus, moral goodness and moral beauty may refer to the same human act or virtue.

The researchers found that the concept of moral beauty is uniquely able to arouse the moral emotions of elevation, through observing other humans’ moral examples. Thus, it has been generalized to create desires for other people to become a better person through their sense of gratitude and affection for the person who elicited the emotion.

A similar study has found that power of positive moral emotion are 'those emotions linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent.' This power has been long established to uplift and transform people’s morality. The attention to such emotions is crucial for a full understanding of human morality over time.

Measurement of Elevation

In terms of measuring elevation, two established instruments that are related to the appreciation of beauty exists: “the 10-item Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence (ABE) subscale of the 240-item Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson & Seligman, 2004 ) and the Aesthetics facet of the Openness scale of the NEO Personality Inventory–Revised (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992)” . These measurement methods are based on self-report, and these measurement criterions are still in development.

Predictive associations of Elevation

Elevation and Trait hope

A study found that the appreciation in beauty tends to increase in trait hope. The researchers studied in a quasi-experiment, where the college students with the intervention group scored significantly higher on trait hope than the comparison group. The experimental group also experienced significantly larger increases with engagement with moral beauty. Integrating understanding beauty with moral education pedagogy, using a key element in philosophical definitions of beauty. It is hypothesized that such pedagogy will increase engagement with natural, artistic and moral beauty and thus raise trait hope.

Elevation and awe

Research shows a model approach to awe, which suggest that two appraisals are always present in all clear cases of awe. “A perceived vastness and a need for accommodation” follows awe, and these are defined as “an inability to assimilate an experience into current mental structures.” The research stated that “five additional appraisals account for variation in the hedonic tone of awe experiences: threat, beauty, exceptional ability, virtue, and the supernatural.” The researchers derive this perspective from a review of what has been written about awe “in religion, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and then apply this perspective to an analysis of awe and related states such as admiration, elevation experience.”

Thus, in relation to elevation, a person may project oneself as “vast in the sense of having great impact on others’ lives”. What is critical is that the stimulus dramatically expands the observer’s usual frame of reference in some dimension or domain. Therefore, this projection of awe, can affect another person’s behavior by positively affecting, and transforming their moral to do something good.

Elevation and Compassion

In previous decades, much research has been focused on shame, guilt, and embarrassment. However, the concept of moral emotions has been expanded to studies in several positive emotions, such as elevation. The researchers describe the morally relevant emotional process, other-oriented empathy. Thus, the study of understanding other’s emotions and compassion has an impact on elevation and the emotional connection that the moral beauty has on others.

In one empirical study, the results showed the social work clinicians’ compassion fatigue, burnout, and other negative consequences in a broader context of positive social work. The researchers argue for a paradigm shift towards identifying the factors that lead clinical social workers toward human flourishing in their field. The study involved measuring ‘‘compassion satisfaction’’ or feelings of fulfillment among workers, finding roots in positive psychology, and gaining higher rates of compassion with others. The results suggest that “affect, work resources, and self-care influence clinicians’ positivity–negativity ratio, which in turn can result in compassion satisfaction.” Elevation can affect the level of compassion and vice versa, as the study shows the positive affects of understanding how others feel.

Elevation and gratitude

Haidt noted that elevation shares with gratitude a sense of affection for the person who elicited the emotion, but its pro-social action tendencies go beyond gratitude’s focus on one’s benefactors to include a “generalized desire to become a better person oneself and to follow the example of the moral exemplar.”

People are often profoundly moved by the virtue or skill of others, yet psychology has little to say about the 'other-praising' family of emotions. However, studies demonstrate that emotions such as elevation, gratitude, and admiration differ from more commonly studied forms of positive affect, such as joy, in many ways, and from each other. The results of studies suggest that: elevation (a response to moral excellence) motivates pro-social and facilitative behavior, gratitude motivates improved relationships with benefactors, and admiration motivates self-improvement.

Criticisms on Elevation

As Haidt and Keltner noted, “There is at present no self-report measure of individual differences in appreciation of beauty and excellence.” They are correct in that there is no stand-alone measure of appreciation of beauty. However, it is still in developing process and it can be used to estimate the person’s ability to appreciate moral beauty.

References

Diessner R., Solom, R.C., Frost N.K., Parsons L., Davidson J. (2008) Engagement With Beauty: Appreciating Natural, Artistic, and Moral Beauty. The Journal of Psychology, 142(3), 303–329.

Haidt, J., Keyes, Corey L. M. (2003). Elevation and the positive psychology of morality. Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived. (pp. 275-289). doi: 10.1037/10594-012

Diessner R., Rust T, Solom R.C., Frost N., Parsons L., (2006) Beauty and hope: a moral beauty intervention. Journal of Moral Education Vol. 35, No. 3 pp. 301–317

Tangney J.P., Stuewig, J., and Mashek D.J. (2007). Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior. Annual Review Psychology: 58:345–72.

Keltner D., Haidt J. (2003) Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion Journal Cognition & Emotion, Volume 17, Issue 2, pages 297 – 314. DOI: 10.1080/02699930302297

Haidt J. (2000). The Positive Emotion of Elevation. Prevention & Treatment, Volume 3, Article 3, posted March 7, 2000 1-4.

Radey M, Charles R. Figley (2007) The Social Psychology of Compassion. Clinical Social Work Journal 35:207–214. DOI 10.1007/s10615-007-0087-3

Algoe S.B., Haidt J. (2009) Witnessing excellence in action: the 'other-praising' emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admiration. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Volume 4, Issue 2 March 2009 , pages 105 - 127 DOI: 10.1080/17439760802650519