Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality

By J. Stellar, Amie M. Gordon, Paul K. Piff, Daniel T. Cordaro, Craig L. Anderson, Yang Bai, Laura A. Maruskin, Dacher Keltner. 2017

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Collective Narcissism: Political Consequences of Investing Self‐Worth in the Ingroup’s Image (2019, background): “Namely, some of the self-transcending emotions such as compassion, a need to ease somebody else’s suffering, seem to be parochial: They are more likely to be experienced towards ingroup members rather than towards outgroup members (Stellar et al., 2017).”
Nature contact and mood benefits: contact duration and mood type (2018, background): “Several researchers studying these emotions refer to them as ‘self-transcendent’ (e.g, Stellar et al., 2017; Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012) and this label will be used henceforth.”
From Awe to Ecological Behavior: The Mediating Role of Connectedness to Nature (2018, background): “The emotion of awe is deemed to be one typical self-transcendent experience [36].”
Charities Can Increase the Effectiveness of Donation Appeals by Using a Morally Congruent Positive Emotion (2019, background): “Importantly, compassion has been shown to increase prosocial behavior and altruism towards kin and non-kin (Stellar et al. 2017).”
The development of the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S): A multifactorial measure for a complex emotion (2018, background): “Feelings of connection to other people and the environment beyond one’s self feature in experiences of awe (Stellar et al., 2017; Yaden et al., 2017).”