Moral elevation
Also known as: Elevation
The warm, uplifted feeling of witnessing moral beauty.
What it means
Moral elevation is a positive, self-transcendent emotion elicited by witnessing unexpected acts of virtue, kindness, courage, or moral beauty, experienced as warmth and expansion in the chest and a sense of being uplifted. It motivates the observer to become a better person and to act more prosocially, often producing a desire to help others and to affiliate with the person who acted virtuously. Distinct from happiness or admiration for skill, elevation specifically responds to moral excellence and appears to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, sometimes accompanied by tears or chills. It functions as the emotional counterpart to disgust and contempt, pulling people up the moral dimension rather than condemning. It is a key positive moral emotion in Haidt's framework.
Examples
Watching a video of strangers forming a human chain to rescue a drowning swimmer, you feel a lump in your throat and an urge to be kinder yourself.
A shop assistant quietly makes up the shortfall for an elderly customer counting out coins. The person waiting behind leaves the queue warmed, and over-tips at the next café.
You hear that a colleague took the blame for a junior's costly error rather than let her be sacked, and feel a rush of warmth and a resolve to be steadier with your own team.
First described in Jonathan Haidt (2000, 2003).