Does observing reciprocity or exploitation affect elevation, a mechanism driving prosociality? - Daniel M. T. Fessler et al.

-----

"A growing literature explores the emotion that Haidt and colleagues (Haidt 2000, 2003a, b; Keltner and Haidt 2003; Algoe and Haidt 2009) termed elevation, a positive, uplifting feeling, elicited by witnessing exemplary prosocial behavior, that motivates increased prosociality in the observer (reviewed in Thomson and Siegel 2017; Pohling and Diessner 2016)."

-----

"the prosocial individual might herself constitute a prospective cooperative partner. Elevation may function completely or partially to establish a dyadic partnership with the exemplar."

-----

"In general, individuals who behave in a highly prosocial manner when surrounded by selfish individuals will not persist for long, as costly exploitation without offsetting benefits will force them to desist, leave or be weakened to the point of being unable to continue acting prosocially."

-----

"a key question for future research will be to determine whether, on the one hand, diminished elevation occurs because antisociality elicits a negatively-valenced emotion, such as moral outrage or moral disgust (see Haidt 2000), that subserves the punishment of antisocial others and competes with elevation, or, on the other hand, observing antisociality exercises a direct depressive effect on elevation elicitation."