I came across this interesting article on the website of The Centre for the Development of Peace and Well-Being, which is housed within the Institute of Human Development, a research unit of the University of California, Berkeley.
Many of you know from prior discussions here that I describe myself as an agnostic and humanist. This article has given me some insight into my own emotional reactions to certain events. After I abandoned religious faith, I was occasionally puzzled when certain events triggered feelings or emotions that I used to turn to religion to understand. The author discusses the concept of "elevation" and although he uses a couple of religious examples to illustrate his ideas, the concept can just as easily be applied to non-religious altruism, which makes it appealing to someone like me.
The article is called "Wired to be Inspired" and can be read as a pdf file at this link:
http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/greater_current_issue.html
Here are the first few paragraphs from the article
"Here's a puzzle: Why do we care when a stranger does a good deed for a stranger? Most theories in the social sciences say that people's actions and feelings are motivated by self-interest. So why are we sometimes moved to tears by the good deeds or heroic actions of others? I believe we cannot have a full understanding of human morality until we can explain why and how human beings are so powerfully affected by the sight of a stranger helping another stranger.
For the past several years, I have studied this feeling, which I call "elevation." I have defined elevation as a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, courage, or compassion. It makes a person want to help others and to become a better person himself or herself.
"Elevation is widely known across cultures and historical eras. You probably recognize it yourself. But for some reason no psychologist has studied it empirically. Instead, psychologists have focused most of their energies on the negative moral emotions, especially guilt and anger. Psychologists have thought about morality primarily as a system of rules that prevents people from hurting each other and taking their possessions.
"But I believe that morality is much richer and more balanced. Most people don't want to rape, steal, and kill. What they really want is to live in a moral community where people treat each other well, and in which they can satisfy their needs for love, productive work, and a sense of belonging to groups of which they are proud. We get a visceral sense that we do not have such a moral world when we see people behave in petty, cruel, or selfish ways.
"But when we see a stranger do a simple act of kindness for another stranger, it gives us a thrilling sense that maybe we do live in such a world. The fact that we can be so responsive to the good deeds of others, even when we do not benefit directly, is a very important facet of human nature. Yes, people can be terribly cruel, and we must continue our study of the conditions that lead to racism, violence, and other social ills. But there is a brighter side to human nature, too, and psychology ought to look more closely at it."