Love, with a Tinge of Tragedy

拥抱再紧一点点，心就会再近一点点

(If we hug a little tighter, our hearts will be a little closer)

Lexicons for Love

Language shapes the labels we give our emotions and our experiences. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world,” observing that the extent to which we can make sense of our private worlds – our thoughts, and feelings, are governed by lexical labels. Research on the links between emotions and language shows that though we may have universalities in terms used for contentment, appreciation, and joy, the varieties of culture mean that we have just as many terms to describe our emotional experiences [1]. Arguably no other human emotion is described as variedly and richly as love. In one study, research by Tim Lomas examined so-called ‘untranslatable’ words used to describe this quintessential human emotion, finding that there were (at least) 609 different words to describe (at least) 14 ‘flavours’ of love [2]. Moving beyond classic psychological theories of love such as Lee’s colour wheel theory of love (with three primary forms of love comprising eros, storge, and ludus; [3]), and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of love (passion, intimacy, commitment [4]), Lomas identifies that love can even be non-personal – meraki, or what the French call joie de vivre is love directed toward activities and engaging with these experiences with zest. Another form of love called chōros is also non-personal, directed toward feelings of being rooted in a place. Examples include hiraeth (“The Welsh cultural longing for Wales”) and Saudade (Portuguese) to denote a close attachment and yearning for one’s home and past.

Kama Muta – Being Moved by Love

What we think of, when we feel love and loved, however, is often directed toward people. Love is perhaps the quintessential human emotion – the unruly emotion that binds, blinds, and bonds [5]. A form of romantic love – called anánkē – star-crossed love, is the classic theme of some of our most beloved stories. Arguably the most enduring of such stories, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which, while tragic, is also memorable in reminding us of how our destinies are tied to those we share a consummate love. It is love, with a dose of tragedy; a love that defies all odds, the story of two people who are fated to find their way back to each other despite the difficulties that stand in their way. The Japanese refer to the inevitability of such love as koi no yokan (sensing love as imminent; a premonition of love), while the Chinese call it a ‘binding force’ – a relationship ordained by the fates. The Chinese tale of Hou Yi and Chang E, often told during the Mid-Autumn Festival, is another example, as is Gaston LeRoux’s Phantom of the Opera and its sequel, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Lover Never Dies (spoiler alert: but Christine does).

The theme and trope of star-crossed lovers finding their way to one other; the flame that never burns out, evokes emotions in us. And this is regardless of our personal preference or otherwise for sappy, tragic love stories. These are stories you have heard expressed in the same way with different characters, and follow a similar theme: lovers are separated, pulled apart by family, community, or some unfortunate circumstance, the lovers make sacrifices and overcome obstacles to reunite. And often, an ultimate, tragic sacrifice is made that ensures the lovers remain forever as one [6]. The emotional experience we feel, toward the story and the romantic-tragic circumstances of the protagonists, has recently been the subject of psychological research. We may be moved to tears, touched, or warmed when we hear such stories.

Recently, researchers have given a name for this emotion – kama muta. A Sanskrit term, kama muta translates to “moved by love.” In Malay, you may have heard of the expression terharu, which is a close equivalent. Calling it the ‘sudden devotion emotion,’ Alan Fiske and colleagues describe kama muta as a strong positive emotion felt when we engage in strong communal sharing with another and often results in bodily sensations such as aesthetic chills (creatively also known as ‘skin orgasms’), a lump in the throat, warmth in the chest, and tears [7]. Imagine tender, heartwarming moments where we embrace those we love after we have been apart from them. Or when a parent holds their newborn for the first time in their arms after a difficult pregnancy. Or when a best friend whom you have missed since moving away suddenly shows up unannounced at your graduation. It is not uncommon for people to recall how they shed tears of joy – expressions of what researchers call dimorphous or ‘mixed’ expressions of emotion during these experiences [8]. Sometimes, amidst difficulty and challenges, there is a happy ending.

The experience of kama muta may well be universal, as indicated by recent cross-cultural psychology research [9]. Using videos to elicit emotions and sampling participants from the five countries, researchers found that all participants reported experiencing the sudden intensification of communal sharing that typifies the kama muta experience. In this study, participants reported feeling closeness to the protagonist when watching the videos eliciting kama muta [10]. Similar results were found in another study focusing on kama muta’s physiological reactions. This other study examined the kama muta response among Portuguese and Norwegian participants and found that the emotion was associated with reduced heart rate and respiration rate but with increased skin temperature, partly explaining why so many of us describe the emotion as ‘heart-warming.’ The researchers also found that when we experience kama muta, our body reacts differently from other comparable emotions – sadness, and awe, for instance [11].

Being, and Experiencing Being Human

Studies of kama muta have also been extended to examine how this emotion is related to other important outcomes. One study, sampling participants from 13 countries during the coronavirus pandemic, showed that when participants felt kama muta when attending online concerts, they also reported higher levels of empathic concern [12]. Another two studies, this time requiring participants to watch videos of communal sharing in out-group strangers, reduced the tendency to dehumanize those who are different from us. Communal sharing and experiencing powerfully moving connections is a human universal – so much so that seeing the same tendencies in our strangers moves us to see them as more “us” instead of more “them” [13]. Finally, kama muta, as part of a category of emotions called self-transcendent emotions (emotions that shift us from thinking about ourselves toward the needs and wants of others; [14]), is also associated with enhanced well-being through fostering connections with a common, human identity. Feeling kama muta moves us to see our common humanity and to identify and empathize with others different from us. It helps us transcend ethnic identity anchors and ultimately, moves us to be more compassionate to all of humanity [15]. Kama muta is perhaps, the one emotion that reminds us that, even amidst ongoing conflict, political tensions, and wars, we all instinctively seek a form of connection that binds us all as human beings.

References

[1] Lomas, T. (2017). The spectrum of positive affect: A cross-cultural lexical analysis. International Journal of Wellbeing, 7(3), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v7i3.608

[2] Lomas, T. (2018). The flavours of love: A cross‐cultural lexical analysis. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 48(1), 134-152. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12158

[3] Lee, J. A. (1973). The Colors of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving. Toronto: New Press.

[4] Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119-135. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.119

[5] Appignanesi, L. (2011). All about love: Anatomy of an unruly emotion. Hachette UK.

[6] Fiske, A. P., Schubert, T. W. & Seibt, B. (2017). The best loved story of all time: overcoming all obstacles to be reunited, evoking kama muta. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. 1(1), 67-70. https://doi.org/10.26613/esic.1.1.12

[7] Fiske, A. P., Seibt, B., & Schubert, T. (2019). The sudden devotion emotion: Kama muta and the cultural practices whose function is to evoke it. Emotion Review, 11(1), 74-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073917723167

[8] Aragón, O. R. (2017). “Tears of joy” and “tears and joy?” Personal accounts of dimorphous and mixed expressions of emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 41, 370-392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-017-9606-x

[9] Zickfeld, J. H., Schubert, T. W., Seibt, C., Blomster, J., Arriaga, P., Basabe, N....Fiske, A. P. (2019). Kama muta: conceptualizing and measuring the experience of being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages. Emotion. 19(3), 402-424. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000450

[10] Seibt, B., Schubert, T. W., Zickfeld, J. H., Zhu, L., Arriaga, P., Simão, C., ... & Fiske, A. P. (2018). Kama muta: Similar emotional responses to touching videos across the United States, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(3), 418-435. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022117746240

[11] Zickfeld, J. H., Arriaga, P., Santos, S. V., Schubert, T. W., & Seibt, B. (2020). Tears of joy, aesthetic chills and heartwarming feelings: Physiological correlates of Kama muta. Psychophysiology, 57(12), e13662. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13662

[12] Blomster Lyshol, J. K., Thomsen, L., & Seibt, B. (2020). Moved by observing the love of others: Kama muta evoked through media fosters humanization of out-groups. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 522347. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01240

[13] Swarbrick, D., Seibt, B., Grinspun, N., & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2021). Corona concerts: The effect of virtual concert characteristics on social connection and Kama muta. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 648448. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648448

[14] Stellar, J. E., Gordon, A. M., Piff, P. K., Cordaro, D., Anderson, C. L., Bai, Y., ... & Keltner, D. (2017). Self-transcendent emotions and their social functions: Compassion, gratitude, and awe bind us to others through prosociality. Emotion Review, 9(3), 200-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073916684557

[15] Pizarro, J. J., Basabe, N., Fernández, I., Carrera, P., Apodaca, P., Man Ging, C. I., ... & Páez, D. (2021). Self-transcendent emotions and their social effects: Awe, elevation and Kama muta promote a human identification and motivations to help others. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 709859. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709859

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