Happiness is the most widely studied positive emotion in Psychology (and not quite coincidentally the topic of one of the most read blog posts on psychologytoday.com for October). The benefits of experiencing happiness go far beyond merely "feeling good", and include a range of physiological and behavioral responses. For example, happiness energizes, motivates, and keeps us healthy by positively influencing our immune system.
While happiness comes in many shades and flavors, and despite the fact that we often use happiness as a catch-all term for all good feelings, happiness is in fact not the only game in town, when it comes to positive emotions. There exist other positive emotions that similar to happiness supply us with good feelings of their own, and cause behavioral responses that are quite distinct from happiness. One class of such emotions are the "other praising" emotions.
Other-praising emotions are emotions that are caused when we witness or interact with excellent individuals, or experience gratitude. The feeling you get when you read about the charity and sacrifice of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King is an other-praising emotion. So is the feeling you get when you watch tapes of Michael Jordan playing basketball, Usain Bolt shattering world records, or the young Michael Jackson performing the moonwalk. The feeling you get when a stranger returns the wallet that you unknowingly left behind is also an other-praising emotion. These emotions, as a recent study in the Journal of Positive Psychology points out, are very distinct to happiness, and also very distinct from each other.
Before talking a little bit about the ways in which the above described positive emotions differ from each other, let me point out the one thing that all positive emotions have in common: Positive emotions
"broaden one's perspective and motivate one to do things that will build skills or resources for the future".
In contrast, negative emotions generally
"narrow and focus one's attention on the matter at hand to solve a problem".
The way that positive emotions, and in particular other-praising emotions differ, is in regards to the specific type of behavior they elicit, or what exactly they motivate us to in response to our positive emotions.
The three major other-praising emotions that are currently being studied more intensively are "Elevation", "Admiration", and "Gratitude".
As Psychologists from the University of North Carolina and University of Virginia were able to show, elevation - the emotion that is elicited by strong displays of virtue, and causes the sensation of dilation or opening of the chest in combination with a sense of being uplifted - motivates people to perform good deeds, emulate and simply become a better person. It also has a positive effect on behavior in relationships, as it increases our general openness to others.
In comparison, Gratitude - which is caused by experiencing others perform good deeds directed as ourselves - motivates people to repay the favor, and publicly praise the person who has shown us kindness. In terms of relationships, gratitude mostly motivates us to seek closer relationship to our benefactors. It is interesting to note, that the motivation to repay favors in response to feelings of gratitude are not necessarily directed exclusively to our benefactors. Rather we might also experience a general motivation to do good as a response to gratitude.
The third emotion under investigation, admiration - which is elicited by experiencing others exhibit exceptional skill or talent - infuses us with a sense of energy, which inspires us to emulate and increase our efforts towards success, but also makes us praise the object of our admiration. In terms of social relationships it comes as no surprise that admiration motivates us to seek closer proximity and integration with those we admire.
Via a series of experiments and self-reports, the study establishes that, unlike happiness (which primarily motivates us to celebrate, expend energy, and tell others about our good feelings), the beneficial effects from "other-praising" emotions are often directed towards others. Or in the study's authors own words:
"The other-praising emotions draw people out of themselves. Compared to emotions from the happiness family, all three other-praising emotions resulted in a focus on others [...] Witnessing and interacting with excellent individuals can create opportunities for enrichment of the self and society. Inspiring leaders, caring benefactors, and selfless saints do more than draw praise from emotionally-responsive witnesses; these exemplary others inspire people to improve themselves, their behavior, and their relationships. Elevation, gratitude, and admiration are not just flavors of happiness. They are a part of the human emotional repertoire that, until now has been largely unexplored, and whose potential remains largely untapped."
Until now...
Main Reference:
Algoe SB, & Haidt J. (2009) Witnessing excellence in action: the 'other-praising' emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admiration. The journal of positive psychology, 4(2), 105-127. PMID: 19495425
