Transcending the self
In 2016, two . The results were extraordinary. scholars examined the empirical evidence on elevation for the American Psychological Association's academic journal
Experiments had found that
elevation made people more likely or willing to volunteer for onerous tasks, donate to charity, mentor other people, register as an organ donor and cooperate with others.
In other experiments, elevation was
found to reduce prejudice and negative attitudes toward "outgroups" such as LGBT people and African-Americans. One experiment even found initial evidence that elevation could lead nonreligious people to become more spiritual, mainly
by fostering a sense that people are benevolent and life is meaningful.
"Elevation appears to lead to transcending the self -- psychologically, physiologically and behaviorally," wrote the scholars who summarized the findings on elevation, Rico Pohling of Germany's Technische Universitat and Rhett Diessner of Idaho's Lewis-Clark State College.
Millions were moved when Francis embraced a disfigured man in 2013.
"Therefore, it may help us to connect with each other, to temporarily overcome our selfishness and perhaps to move toward changing ourselves and thus inducing an upward spiral of positive change, not only for the individual who experiences it, but for a whole community."
But elevation may not be all kindness and connection, Pohling and Diessner warned. One study found initial evidence that suicide bombings could cause elevation "within members of the same cultural group."
"The results exemplify that elevation may indeed foster a desire to become like a martyr in certain societies," the scholars wrote. "However, further studies are needed on this highly provocative topic."
Most of the studies, though, offered empirical evidence about elevation's potential benefits. Here's how one worked:
In 2010, three scholars set out to test if elevation could inspire altruism in British university students. They recruited 59 young women from the University of Plymouth in England and broke them into three groups.
One group was shown a video clip of Oprah Winfrey's show in which musicians expressed appreciation for their mentors. Another was shown a sketch from "Fawlty Towers," a British sitcom, intended to produce mirth. The control group saw a nature documentary.
After watching the videos, the women were asked to write a short essay about what they had seen, while the researchers pretended to have computer problems that fouled up the whole experiment.
Would the women be willing to participate in another study, the researchers asked, warning that it was "rather boring" -- a series of 85 elementary math questions.
The women who had seen the Oprah clip, the researchers found, not only felt elevated -- warm in the chest, uplifted in the mind -- they were more likely to volunteer for the boring study and spent roughly twice as much time on the math questions as the women who had seen the comedy or documentary. Many even stayed to help beyond the hour for which they had signed up, the researchers said.
Daniel Fessler, an evolutionary anthropologist at UCLA who co-wrote the study, said we don't fully understand elevation yet. We don't know why we feel it, or why, from an evolutionary perspective, feeling it would offer an advantage to a particular person.
But the societal effects of elevation could be huge, Fessler and other scholars said.
The study of elevation could help nurses, doctors, social workers, teachers and others who work long and often under-appreciated hours caring for other people.
It could also reshape how we teach ethics and morals to students. They might, for example, be interested in a real-life example of altruism that stars a famous Hollywood director.