kindness

Kama Muta: A New Term for That Warm, Fuzzy Feeling We All Get

It motivates devotion and compassion to communal sharing – also known as ‘loving kindness’.

It’s hiding in plain sight: without realising what you were feeling, you’ve probably experienced this same emotion in diverse situations such as when reunited with family or others you love; in worship; at a wedding; when you first held your newborn baby; when your team won a championship; or when a kitten climbed into your lap, licked your hand, curled up and fell asleep there. You might have felt it marching in a social-movement demonstration, or participating in a support or recovery group.

Now think back.

At any of those times, was there a wonderful warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart? Did you cry tears of joy? Were you choked up with happiness? Did you get goosebumps or chills of delight? Feel so buoyant you were almost floating? Perhaps you put your hand on your heart and said ‘Awww!’ If you had these sensations, you were probably feeling this mysterious emotion. Next, you probably wanted to hug everyone, or call your grandparents to tell them how much you love them.

However, none of these terms captures precisely what the emotion is – and using any one of them conceals the fact that though it has many names, it is one emotion. So we coined a scientific term for it, ‘kama muta’, borrowed from the ancient Sanskrit where it meant ‘moved by love’, written in the beautiful Devanāgarī script as काममूत.

Kama muta is recognisable by six co-occurring features:

It is evoked by the sudden intensification of communal sharing – that is, sudden ‘love’ or kindness;
It is brief (typically less than a minute or two, though it can repeat in rapid succession);
It feels good (though it can occur in the context of other, negative emotions);
When intense, it is often accompanied by the same set of physical sensations: a warm, fuzzy feeling in the centre of the chest; moist eyes or tears; being choked up (a lump in the throat); chills or goosebumps; and often a smile and putting the palm(s) on the chest, sometimes saying ‘Awwww!’;
It motivates devotion and compassion to communal sharing – also known as ‘loving kindness’;
Depending on the language and the context, it is often labelled with the terms mentioned above.

In several experiments with more than 10,000 participants in 19 nations in 15 languages, involving observation, interviews, diary studies, comparative ethnology and history, we have shown that these six features frequently co-occur, in the specific contexts mentioned above, and many others where love ignites.

We’ve conducted observational research in churches and mosques, in poetry lounges and memorial sites, at Alcoholics Anonymous and eating-disorder residential treatment programmes, in birth centres and with new parents. We have explored hundreds of historical sources and hundreds of ethnographies from diverse cultures all over the world.

Wherever we’ve looked, in myriad contexts and cultures, we’ve found the same pattern: kama muta and its six features are consistently evoked by viewing videos of sudden connection or kindness, confirming that it is one emotion. So, for example, when we show participants short videos that involve love springing up between fictional characters, the participants tend to get warm feelings in the heart, often along with tears or goosebumps, just as we find in participant observation in Sufi and Pentecostal services when the worshipper suddenly feels divine love.

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Kama muta is closely related to, but not the same as, love. Love is an enduring sentiment, whereas kama muta is the momentary emotion that occurs when love ignites. That is, you feel kama muta when new love emerges (such as a first kiss, or someone shows you kindness), or existing love suddenly becomes salient, or a sense of belonging, connection, and identity emerges, for example at a march or demonstration. The suddenly created or intensified love can be romantic, platonic, or religious. It can be with one person, with a family or team, or with the entire Earth. It can be the gratitude for an unexpected kindness, or the sense of connection and belonging at a warm welcome.

That feeling is all around us.

Social media posts that evoke strong kama muta often go viral – for example, cute kittens, puppies and special animal friendships. The popularity of some literature (especially sentimental novels) and movies (especially romantic comedies) is, we suspect, often largely due to the kama muta they evoke.

Kama muta is often the essence of oratory and poetry such as William Shakespeare’s sonnets and Matsuo Bashō’s haiku. Many kinds of music evoke it in multiple ways, as do certain experiences of oneness with nature. It appears to be a universal emotion, present in diverse cultures throughout history.

Many social practices have culturally evolved via their capacity to evoke this appealing emotion. The more a form of worship, a type of music or a narrative evokes kama muta, the more people seek it out, tell others about it and reproduce it. When a Pixar movie, a wedding practice or poetry or photographs evoke kama muta, they spread across the globe. Preachers, orators, marketing creatives and political consultants who can create pitches that effectively evoke kama muta are more successful than those who cannot. Religious practices that engender kama muta presumably attract more worshippers and motivate those who have experienced kama muta to proselytise and to found new congregations.

Kama muta moves the world.

When people are isolated and vulnerable, excluded and distressed, kama muta can reconnect them. Patients who feel kama muta with their psychotherapists seem to become more trusting and more committed to healing. Women in residential treatment for eating disorders who bond through kama muta apparently become more motivated to recover. Addicts who experience kama muta in support meetings might be more committed to stay sober. Immigrants who have kama muta experiences with people in their host country are likely to feel a stronger sense of belonging and identification with their hosts. And people who have kama muta experiences with immigrants or LGBTQ persons become more likely to embrace them.

Even a small unexpected kindness kindles kama muta: a thoughtful gift, a hug, an invitation to join a meal, an appearance at your bedside in the hospital. The lonely are more likely to fall ill and more likely to die; in contrast, kama muta connects, probably enhancing wellbeing and health.

We’ve only been studying kama muta for a few years, so many mysteries remain.

We don’t yet know the underlying biochemistry or what neural processes are involved in recognising sudden intensifications of love, or how they generate the sensations and motives characteristic of kama muta.

Alan Fiske is a psychological anthropologist and distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Featured image credit: Unsplash

Kama Muta: A New Term for That Warm, Fuzzy Feeling We All Get

Kama muta is closely related to, but not the same as, love.

Some emotions you seem to recognise the moment you feel them – you know when you’re angry, surprised, embarrassed or jealous. And yet you probably can’t name one of life’s most wonderful emotions (in fact, even psychologists have only recently begun to study it). It’s hiding in plain sight: without realising what you were feeling, you’ve probably experienced this same emotion in diverse situations such as when reunited with family or others you love; in worship; at a wedding; when you first held your newborn baby; when your team won a championship; or when a kitten climbed into your lap, licked your hand, curled up and fell asleep there. You might have felt it marching in a social-movement demonstration, or participating in a support or recovery group.

Now think back. At any of those times, was there a wonderful warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart? Did you cry tears of joy? Were you choked up with happiness? Did you get goosebumps or chills of delight? Feel so buoyant you were almost floating? Perhaps you put your hand on your heart and said ‘Awww!’ If you had these sensations, you were probably feeling this mysterious emotion. Next, you probably wanted to hug everyone, or call your grandparents to tell them how much you love them.

Although there is no exact word in any everyday language for this emotion, English speakers seeking to name the feeling might call it, depending on the context: being moved, touched, team pride, patriotism, being touched by the Spirit, burning in the bosom, the feels, or, when evoked by a memory, nostalgia. However, none of these terms captures precisely what the emotion is – and using any one of them conceals the fact that though it has many names, it is one emotion. So we coined a scientific term for it, ‘kama muta’, borrowed from the ancient Sanskrit where it meant ‘moved by love’, written in the beautiful Devanāgarī script as काममूत.

Kama muta is recognisable by six co-occurring features:

It is evoked by the sudden intensification of communal sharing – that is, sudden ‘love’ or kindness;
It is brief (typically less than a minute or two, though it can repeat in rapid succession);
It feels good (though it can occur in the context of other, negative emotions);
When intense, it is often accompanied by the same set of physical sensations: a warm, fuzzy feeling in the centre of the chest; moist eyes or tears; being choked up (a lump in the throat); chills or goosebumps; and often a smile and putting the palm(s) on the chest, sometimes saying ‘Awwww!’;
It motivates devotion and compassion to communal sharing – also known as ‘loving kindness’;
Depending on the language and the context, it is often labelled with the terms mentioned above.

That feeling is all around us. Social media posts that evoke strong kama muta often go viral – for example, cute kittens, puppies and special animal friendships. The popularity of some literature (especially sentimental novels) and movies (especially romantic comedies) is, we suspect, often largely due to the kama muta they evoke. Kama muta is often the essence of oratory and poetry such as William Shakespeare’s sonnets and Matsuo Bashō’s haiku. Many kinds of music evoke it in multiple ways, as do certain experiences of oneness with nature. It appears to be a universal emotion, present in diverse cultures throughout history.

We’ve only been studying kama muta for a few years, so many mysteries remain. We don’t yet know the underlying biochemistry or what neural processes are involved in recognising sudden intensifications of love, or how they generate the sensations and motives characteristic of kama muta. We are planning many more studies in diverse contexts, from psychotherapy to charity giving to religious devotion. Join us on our journey of discovery by following our latest research into kama muta on our lab website.

Alan Fiske is a psychological anthropologist and distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. His latest book is Kama Muta: Discovering the Connecting Emotion (2019).

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Where Can You Find the Good Place to Do Good Science?

Informal teaching situations can be the antidote to each person’s sense of otherness.

Most of us have heard of the different experiences of men and women in science, regarding job searches, salaries, and/or peer review (Holman et al., 2018; Murray et al., 2019). For some people, supporting claims of disparity with specific measurements is itself empowering. For others, however, the simple awareness of difference, regardless of how it arose, can make us feel helpless and disempowered; it becomes a daily challenge to cope with the thought that success and power are distributed unequally in the fields that we have come to view as our homes.

What I wonder, therefore, is whether we – women and men – can gain access to whatever power we actually have, right now, in a manner that might help all of us navigate the imperfect world in which we do science. It is that idea, orthogonal to the question of the existence of disparity, that I would like explore, in a wholly personal and idiosyncratic way.

In any discussion of power in science, it makes sense first to ask, who has the power anyway? One thing I have observed: men, women, old, young, locals, immigrants, professors, trainees, people of all nations, ethnicities, creeds, and orientations – almost everyone – feels like it’s not them. They conclude that power rests elsewhere – perhaps with full professors, or with men, or with native English speakers – leading to a self-perception as the ‘other’. And even setting aside assumptions about which people hold the power, most scientists agree that it is not a level playing field even within a demographic group.

But what is ‘a level playing field’? Sometimes that phrase refers to equality of access, and working toward creating opportunity for all is, I think, obligatory. Once everyone has been admitted to the arena of possibility, however, it seems inevitable that individual variability will persist. If so, power differentials may be inescapable.

This idea can be initially disturbing since we live in an era in which the word ‘power’ so often connotes exploitation. And yet, the contrary is implicit in the word ’empowerment’, whose appeal is evident in our saying that we want power, presumably for constructive purposes. Are we hinting that we ourselves can handle being in charge while others cannot? Maybe old adages like ‘power corrupts’ tell us that managing power is troublesome for anyone. And yet, completely eliminating differentials, even in quest of an egalitarian ideal, can be just as problematic as concentrating power.

At the extremes, both approaches distort to the point of promoting monoculture. And monoculture has never worked, at least not in the long term. It hasn’t worked in agriculture, where repeated cultivation of the same crop has rendered the soil infertile. It hasn’t worked in nutrition, where unvaried diets have led to dietary deficiencies. It hasn’t worked in politics, where single-party systems have enabled oppression. It hasn’t worked in economics, where depending on only one product has culminated in financial collapse. And it hasn’t worked in social policy, where efforts to create a homogeneous populace have resulted in extremes of cruelty.

The opposite of monoculture is diversity in the broadest sense of this overused word. To my experience, a central pleasure of doing science is the diversity of the shifting roles one plays while moving through the uncharted environment of discovery. To do creative science, one holds power repeatedly but transiently, as in the child’s game of ‘hot potato’, alternating regularly between being the teacher and being the student, the mentor and the mentored, the master and the apprentice, the reviewer and the reviewed.

Power certainly resides in such pairings, but healthy relationships of this sort, which I shorthand as ‘teaching relationships’, can become a benevolent hierarchy that helps people grow rather than remain static, and cultivate learning rather than reside in ignorance. Being admitted to the tutelage of someone more knowledgeable than we are, who cares about communicating with us, is itself a treat – a privilege – that lets us reach across ranks and fields and gives us glimpses into the experiences that might lie ahead.

Conversely, assuming the responsibility to be the trainer provides the reward of using our expertise for others’ benefit and thereby building collegiality, understanding, and friendliness. The act of teaching transduces the scientific into the humane. It doesn’t matter whether one is a formal teacher in front of a classroom or not; informal teaching situations come up constantly in the doing of science. They are not only the substrate of learning but also the fabric of community: an antidote to each person’s sense of otherness.

A central pleasure of doing science is the diversity of the shifting roles one plays while moving through the uncharted environment of discovery. Photo: Beasty/Unsplash

Now, almost anyone who has clambered through a thesis defence, a job search, a promotion, or even just the selection process to become a reviewer or editor – and thus attained the next position of purported power – may already have found out exactly how little explicit power each next coveted position confers, regardless of whether or not one belongs to a dominant demographic group. It is rarely the kind of power with which you can tell people what to do and have them obey to the letter. If your experience parallels my own, your years as a trainee will rise up in memory and laugh at you, as you find that the people whom you thought had power, whom you had mentally characterised as walking on water, were actually treading water to keep afloat.

But you do get one thing by advancing through the ranks. You get other people’s perception that you have power. And, wielded correctly, sometimes that is good enough. Nearly all of us can remember a teacher-figure who discouraged us; who, in a few comments or pointed words, brought us low or rattled our faith in ourselves. But almost everyone can also remember a teacher-figure who encouraged us, guided us, or gave us an awareness of our own possibility and potential. Many of us may recall some specific words that person said – words that might have been spoken in a formal moment of mentoring, or that might have been uttered as an incidental comment whose value lay in its unexpectedness.

Because we believed those teacher-figures, the bad ones and the good ones, we either tumbled into dejection or found the courage and enthusiasm to press onward. And what I think is worth remembering is that, with each student you train, each colleague you advise, each review you write, you are the teacher. Your words and actions – sometimes the subject matter you convey and almost always the manner in which you communicate – have the potential to stay in people’s memories for decades, even for the rest of their lives.

So, whenever you ‘teach’, either face-to-face, or anonymously through a review process – each time you address a group and survey the curious or fearful or weary or cynical or apprehensive or excited or bored faces in front of you – you can be sure that every person on the receiving end is, in some way or another, hoping that something good will happen to him or her. And it is within the teacher’s ability to help make that good thing happen. To me, that is power.

I actually believe that. And I’m convinced that if we can figure out the kind of power that fosters a benevolent hierarchy, we can engage in willing scientific risk in the context of cross-rank community – and open the gates to discovery. It’s a beautiful idea, anyway, one that I try to practice each day. Does it always work? No. In fact, I find that a big part of being that ideal of a teacher-scientist is simply absorbing insult. Even as the teacher-figure, sometimes you do get caught on the weak end of a negative hierarchical relationship.

In these cases, I have invariably found that on the other side of a seemingly calamitous process of extrication lies a life that is often good and always more compassionate. And even when no malice is at play, people who see your successes often cannot detect that you, too, are subject to threat, and they treat you carelessly. Here, you must figure out how to get past the unintended hurt, keep laughing, and find a way to love people anyway. (The polite kind of love.)

Of course, it is easy to be generous when you are secure; it is harder to remain generous when you are insecure and vulnerable – and as a scientist, one is often vulnerable, especially at grant renewal, promotion, or publication time. And because of that, it is important to remember that the reason to be a good teacher or mentor or colleague or reviewer is not because it necessarily enhances your science or your career. In fact, there will almost certainly be times when that kind of generosity will cost you in some way. The reason to be generous, despite the cost, is because humanity and interpersonal civility are the essence of civilisation in general, and of scientific culture in particular, based as it is on collaboration, integrity, and constructive peer review.

The core of building that kind of society is selflessness. And I mean that literally: when you do good science, the self disappears. The discoveries will stand even when the discoverer is forgotten – and we will all be forgotten, or at least misrepresented and misunderstood. Truth is independent of credit. Selflessness is often confused with service, which in turn is mistakenly equated with servitude. But selflessness isn’t servitude. Selflessness is perfectly compatible with the best kinds of leadership. It simply requires a focus on the task at hand – here, research and education – rather than personal glory.

The corollary to these ideas is that anybody cannot, and need not, become anything. The notion that we can or should is a cheerful fallacy that actually promotes homogeneity. Instead, as I see it, the fact is that everybody can become something, and probably something different from the next person. This is truly the soil of diversity from which collaboration grows – each person contributing his or her talents, while depending in a healthy, often affectionate, way on each other. Learning to flip graciously between the teacher-role and student-role is the key to meaningful collaboration and benevolent hierarchy.

Although I have been talking here about power dynamics between people, the same ideas pertain to the teaching within oneself. One of the most extraordinary capacities of the human brain is its ability to compartmentalise. It has given rise to terrible hypocrisies, but it has also allowed people to do beautiful, magnanimous things in the face of personal grief and turmoil. And the internal dialogue is actually the source from which scientific research springs: teaching is transitive, asking how do I help them learn something; research is reflexive, asking how do I help myself learn something.

Being a good teacher internally – giving oneself appropriate correction for one’s errors and accurate credit for one’s achievements – develops honesty within, which cultivates rationality without. It is the only way to create an environment of trust. And, as far as I can tell, there is no better place to do science.

This article was originally published by eLife. It has been reproduced here under the terms of a CC BY 4.0 license.

Indira M. Raman is a neuroscientist and the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor at the department of neurobiology, Northwestern University, Illinois.

Observations Around My Date’s Online and Offline Persona

Digital biographies or social media profiles can be a source of many things but the thing they sell the best? Narratives.

I met someone and as soon as I got home, I stalked him online – the usual. I dug deep into his Facebook profile and also found his Instagram handle. The IG profile was a private one, but there was a link of an organisation in the bio. It opened to a page which provided information on the people working for it – and there he was.

He had a big smile on his face, captured just like DiCaprio in the Strutting Leo meme. Now, the game changer was the bio that followed below the picture. No, there wasn’t anything surprising there – everything was just as he had told me. But, as I read through the profile, the person I had just met exited my mind and the Executive Director of a start-up from an esteemed institution – who also happened to play the violin – stayed.

I was intimidated by the profile. “I shouldn’t be dating him… I should get his interview,” I thought to myself. The profile wasn’t even lying. He had told me most of the things that it mentioned. Then, why was I feeling like I didn’t really know the man in the profile even though I had met him?

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Two words: Narrative Building.

Digital biographies or social media profiles can be a source of many things – information, news, photos, stories, etc. But the thing they sell the best? Narratives.

These narratives may vary in genre but they all ultimately aim to convince us into believing them. We do believe them and make assumptions, which direct our thoughts about the person. I had met this person and had felt at ease around him. But switch to the profile and I was intimidated; tensed at the idea of meeting the profile-person.

His profile built a narrative that spoke about his achievements, hobbies and interests. Just like mine, or anyone else’s. The profile spoke nothing of his calm temper and respectful behaviour, just like mine stays mum about the intimidation I felt. Our profiles do not take into account our innate human qualities.

We have accepted and conformed to a system which is designed to represent us devoid of our humanness. We build a narrative in our minds based on this representation and make a judgement. I, for one, thought, “Such achievements, much wow,” followed by a “Man, I haven’t done shit in life.” None of which came to my mind while I was actually sitting in front of him.

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The stories personal profiles try to sell do not include a person’s emotional intelligence, their empathy level, kindness or respectful attitude. Such narratives may turn out to be efficient tools in some cases, like mapping specific skill sets of a person for a job. But Facebook and Instagram do not do that. Instead, they claim to represent us wholly.

Well, let’s clear the air around it – they don’t.

We are not limited to our educational qualification, achievements, birth date, or the last hotel/flight check-in. We are people with all that, plus feelings, thoughts and emotions. So, the next time we stalk someone’s profile maybe we can keep that in mind.

Featured image credit: Unsplash