Kama muta: The emotion you never knew you had, and how to feel more of it

You hold your newborn in your arms and look into his beautiful eyes; You're waiting at the airport for a family member to return from a year-long trip and suddenly you see him walking towards you; or you sit in a sports stadium and watch your team hold the trophy after years of struggle. In each case, you feel a deep sense of connection swell within you, your skin breaks out in goosebumps and your eyes fill with tears.

Sound familiar? You may not know the term, but this feeling is “kama mutha,” a newly named emotion that is of growing interest to psychologists. It marks some of the most important moments in our relationships with family, friends and society at large. By consciously seeking out opportunities to evoke this feeling, you can add more meaning to your life and enhance your sense of social connection.

It all started in 2012 with a conversation between Alan Fishanthropologist from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his colleagues. Thomas Schubert And Beate Seibtboth are now working at the University of Oslo in Norway. Why, they asked, do we start crying at movies with happy endings? Until this point, psychologists had primarily focused on tears as a sign of sadness.

The informal discussion soon developed into serious academic research, beginning with lengthy interviews and questionnaires about people's strong emotional reactions to positive events. The team soon discovered a number of characteristics. First, descriptions were often given in terms of movement, such as “moving,” “stirring,” “carrying,” or “lifting.” Secondly, it was accompanied by specific physical sensations, including tears in the eyes, goosebumps, short-term cessation of breathing and warmth in the chest. Third, and perhaps most importantly, it seemed to be caused by the strengthening of some kind of social relationship.

This feeling can arise in a variety of contexts: when a parent is caring for their child, when two lovers are reunited, or when two friends share their secrets. To capture the full range of experiences, explorers cast their nets far and wide. For example, one of their students attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and discovered that this feeling often arose from the unconditional acceptance offered by other members.

“Instead of feeling alone and completely miserable about who you are and what you've done, you find that this terrible moment in your life connects you deeply with other people,” Fiske says.

This reaction can also occur during religious devotions, such as prayer, when someone may feel a strong connection with a deity. This is a common reaction at public events such as sports matches, where you may feel great admiration or pride for your team after fighting for victory, or at a memorial where you thank the people who sacrificed their lives for your country.

As rich as the English language is, we simply don't have a single term to describe this experience. As a result, we often fail to recognize common characteristics of emotions across different situations. “That’s the radical argument we’re making,” Fiske says. “That it's the same emotion.”

He and his colleagues borrowed the term from Sanskrit: like a womanwhich means “driven by love.” “That Sanskrit phrase seemed so poetic,” Fiske says.

He sometimes describes it as a feeling of “love burning” and says it may have evolved to ensure that we take care of the people who matter most to us. After all, in prehistoric times, our social connections were essential to our survival, and the emotions that strengthened those bonds would have given us a distinct advantage. Social connections are a huge factor in human health and survival today. Like other “self-transcending” emotions such as awe, kama muta can help us gain a better perspective on our lives. improves our overall well-being.

How to find kama mutu

Thanks to our extraordinary capacity for empathy, we can vicariously experience kama-muta by watching videos of other people – and this seems to extend across cultures. For one study Fiske and his colleagues were shown videos, such as an excerpt from a documentary film, to participants from the United States, Norway, China, Israel and Portugal. lion reunites with his former guardians. Indeed, these short films depicting intense moments of interaction are significantly more likely to induce kama muta than those depicting more mundane social situations.

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Social connections are a huge factor in human health and survival.
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These experiments suggest that kama muta may have important consequences, such as increasing people's motivation to build and maintain relationships. When participants felt an emotion, they gave higher ratings to statements such as “I felt more committed to the relationship” and “I wanted to hug someone.”

People often experience kama muta during concerts due to the beauty of the music and the feeling of unity. “People come up to strangers in the lobby and say, 'Excuse me, can I give you a hug?' says Fiske. Taylor Swift fans may not be surprised: During the record-breaking Eras tour, Swifties routinely exchanged friendship bracelets with the people around them.

Some people are especially prone to feeling kama muta, and this this seems to be related to their empathic concern. But in everyday life, we could all learn to develop more emotions by listening more closely to the people around us.

“When people are listened to well, they tend to feel more comfortable with their listener, and they may end up revealing more of themselves, as well as being more self-reflective,” says Kenneth DeMarripsychologist from the University at Buffalo in New York State. This, he believes, contributes to the rapid development of relationships, which should cause a feeling of kama muta.

DeMarri recently put this to the test. series of collaborations with speaking experts from the University of Haifa in Israel. In one study, researchers set up a Zoom call between two strangers, one of whom was asked to share a personal experience with the other person. In another experiment, they were asked to remember a conversation from the past or imagine it in the future.

In each case, the feeling of attention and acceptance led to the ignition of a familiar feeling of love. When the listening quality was higher, participants felt more kama-muta. Besides, it turns out it didn't matter whether they listened or were listened to. “The simple conversations we engage in on a daily basis can really help develop meaningful connections if we listen well to them,” says DeMarri.

Eat many other ways experience kama muta even if you are alone. Reading or watching romance stories may be an obvious choice, but watching cute cat videos seems to help as your heart goes out to a vulnerable creature that needs your protection.

Actively and intentionally cultivating emotions can change the way you see yourself. In the past, we may have deliberately suppressed this feeling. “You might think, 'Oh God, I'm not going to get emotional,'” Fiske says. “But knowing about this emotion and knowing that everyone feels it gives you the right to enjoy it.”

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