Kama Muta

Discovering the Connecting Emotion

Alan Page Fiske

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000751499
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Ethnopsychology
• Index: Psychology

This book describes a ubiquitous and potent emotion that has only rarely and recently been studied in any systematic manner. The words that come closest to denoting it in English are being moved or touched, having a heart-warming feeling, feeling nostalgic, feeling patriotic, or pride in family or team. In religious contexts when the emotion is intense, it may be labeled ecstasy, mystical rapture, burning in the bosom, or being touched by the Spirit. All of these are instances of what scientists now call 'kama muta' (Sanskrit, 'moved by love'). Alan Page Fiske shows that what evokes this emotion is the sudden creation, intensification, renewal, repair, or recall of a communal sharing relationship – when love ignites, or people feel newly connected. He explains the social, psychological, cultural, and likely evolutionary processes involved – and how they interlock.

Kama muta is described as it manifests in diverse settings at many points in history across scores of cultures, in everyday experiences as well as the peak moments of life. The chapters illuminate the occurrence of kama muta in a range of contexts, including religion, oratory, literature, sport, social media, and nature. The book will be of interest to students and scholars from a number of disciplines who are interested in emotion or social relationships.

Supplementary notes can be found online at: www.routledge.com/9780367220945

Part I

The feeling

1

Cuteness and cosmos

Contemplant un jour un beau bébé de deux ans, frais et rose, aux cheveux bouclés, qui dormait paisiblement en plein air, caressé par le soleil d’une douce matinée en printemps, j’ai été ‘ému.’

[Observing one day a beautiful two-year-old baby, fresh and pink, with curly hair, sleeping peacefully outside, caressed by the sunshine of a mild spring morning, I was ‘moved.’]

(Claparède 1930:335)

If kama muta has a prototype, it is the experience of hearing, seeing, and/or holding an infant. Indeed, ‘imprinting’ or ‘attachment’ to one’s infant is presumably the primordial evolutionary function of kama muta. Responses to blog queries such as “how does it feel to hold your newborn baby for the first time” on sites such Yahoo! Answers indicate that many English–speaking mothers and fathers weep when they first see and hold their newborns. On another website a woman writes of her childbirth:

As the labor progressed, three things helped me more than anything else: Alex fed me ice chips, which were hugely refreshing. He put cold damp paper towels on my forehead and wiped my face during each contraction, which felt wonderful and helped distract me from the intense pressure. Most of all, I responded enormously to his positive encouragement. He’d say things like, ‘You’re doing a great job; you’re so amazing; I’m so proud of you; our sweet baby boy is coming into the world because of you.’ (Those words still make me tear up!) Every time he’d say something buoying, I’d feel a huge new wave of energy. I was amazed at how well positive encouragement helped, and I was so grateful to him.

So it was at 12:40pm that the doctor placed teeny Toby into my arms. He was purplish-red and wet and crying, and my heart felt like it was going to burst. He felt soft and smooth, and I was weeping and laughing. It was so magical to be cuddling our sweet sweet baby in my arms after nine months. I would have a million babies just for that moment.

Remembering that day still makes me weepy.¹

But the cuteness of any child, animal, cartoon character, doll, or stuffed animal can evoke kama muta. People are often instantly attracted to others’ infants and toddlers, as well as kittens, puppies, and other baby animals that match the neotenous Kindchenschema (Lorenz 1943, 1988:164–165). Lorenz described the Kindchenschema as a gestalt comprising relatively large head compared to body size, a high and protruding forehead, large eyes, chubby cheeks, a small nose and mouth, short and thick extremities, and a plump body shape. Sounds and smells are probably also important (Kringelbach et al. 2016), as is a certain configuration of clumsy awkwardness in locomotion. Many breeds of dogs are tailored expressly to the Kindchenschema template – buyers prefer cute dogs and breeders select for this schema.²

The cuter the image of an infant or child, the more participants rate themselves as motivated to take care of the infants depicted (Glocker et al. 2009; Nittono et al. 2012; Sherman et al.; Coan 2012). Similarly, Volk and Quinsey (2002) found that the younger the age of the face depicted in a photograph (aged six months to six years), the more viewers expressed hypothetical willingness to care for and to adopt the depicted child. The immediate motivations evoked by seeing cute babies are to feed them, touch and hold them, and keep them warm, which are exactly what a newborn needs. Bodily contact between parent and child is the primary medium for this permanent attachment or bonding, and it is our impression that these moments of cuddling the baby are frequently the events in which parents and other family members report kama muta.

People tend to perceive cute beings as helpless, physically weak (Lorenz 1943), naïve, warm, and kind (Berry & McArthur 1985), and hence vulnerable and needing care. Susan T. Fiske and colleagues’ extensively and cross-culturally supported Stereotype Content Model posits that the perception of a person or category of person’s warmth and low competence evokes the perceiver’s pity and sympathy toward the person(s), in turn eliciting helping and protective behavior (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick 2007; S. Fiske 2010; S. Fiske 2012). And there is direct evidence that facial cuteness does evoke help-related behavior, such as returning lost resumes (Keating et al. 2003). Dijker (2014) theorizes that there is an adaptive psychological disposition to feel “sympathy” when a person perceives that another person is cute and vulnerable. Dijker posits that this disposition has evolved because it prevents harm to kin. Dijker suggests that the emotion of being moved is closely related to the tender feelings prompted by cute targets. Indeed, one intriguing American study found that the more “attractive” (cute?) an infant, the more affectionate and attentive the mother was, measured by her objective actions (Langlois et al. 1995).

The International Affective Picture System consists of 606 photographs intended to evoke the full range of human emotions (Bradley & Lang 2007). A large sample of American participants rated each of the photos on what the authors call “valance” by selecting a schematized “manikin” from an array that varied in facial expression and body position. Of all 606 photos, the seven photos rated most positive were photos of, respectively: puppies, bunnies, a kitten, a human baby, a seal, a human baby, and another human baby. This suggests that the cuteness kama muta response to images is very strong indeed.

Kamilla Knutsen Steinnes (2017) interviewed (in Norwegian) seven women who were at an animal shelter near Oslo and were interacting with cute animals at the time she interviewed them. In response to questions about their feelings at the moment, four spontaneously labeled their emotion rørt, the nearest term to the English moved, which is the word that Norwegians typically use to name kama muta experiences. Most of the sensations that are characteristic of kama muta (see Chapter 2) were reported by most of the seven women (Steinnes 2017:13). Table 1.1 summarizes the sensations they reported.

TABLE 1.1 Sensations of women interacting with animals at an Oslo animal shelter

Source: Steinnes 2017.

One 56-year-old respondent said that “Whenever I get that feeling after spending time with her [informant’s cat], I just want to do kind things for others. I get really friendly” (2017:12; all quotations translated by Steinnes). She also said,

I have certainly felt it [the feeling] before. [Interviewer: When?] After the birth of my first and second child. … Other times that I’ve felt this same emotion is when I was in love. I just feel happy. It’s pure bliss, this feel-good experience. I feel like I’m helping the animal and I receive plenty in return. She [informant’s cat] appreciates my affection and care, you know. She talks to me, purrs, and I can just tell how much she is enjoying herself. It’s really rewarding.

(Steinnes 2017:13)

Another, age 26, said,

I would compare it with my boyfriend. You know, the feeling I have here right now [at the animal shelter surrounded by seven kittens] is the same as what I usually feel around him. I feel safe and completed. It is reassuring somehow. It might not be the exact same because these are two completely different situations. But I do think the feeling is the same in both. For me anyway.

(2017:13)

A 16-year-old informant “compared the feeling to the same one she experienced when she celebrated Christmas Eve with her family. She highlighted unity, love and happiness to describe the feeling she felt in both contexts.” (2017:13) And she described the pleasant sensation of warmth from inside. Narratives relating to caretaking and parental protection surfaced in five out of the seven interviews. One woman told how she and her dog have a child-parent relationship: “He is like a small child. I feel this maternal instinct coming to life in me, I want to protect him, to take care of him.” (Informant F, age 24) Another woman described the mutual caretaking bond she had formed with her cat: “She can always tell when I need her. She comes over and takes care of me, just like I take care of her. She puts her paws around my neck, almost like she is giving me a hug” (Informant G, age 23).

Steinnes (2017) also ran a study using data kindly provided by Ad Vingerhoets and Tim Wildschut, combined with new data she collected. Participants rated seven photos of young animals and seven of adult animals. Dutch participants were asked how much the image evoked felt physical sensations or made them feel moved (Wekt dit plaatje lichamelijke beroering op?) and how much it touched them (Raakt dit plaatje u?). Norwegian participants were asked (in English) to rate how cute each image was. Across the 14 images, cuteness ratings were correlated with how moving it was (r = .73, p = .003) and how touching it was (r = .82, p < .001). In another study she pretested videos of animals to select four especially cute videos and four not particularly cute ones. Then she showed the videos to a Norwegian sample and a US American sample. As predicted, the cute videos evoked significantly more intense sensations typical of kama muta (see Chapter 2); higher ratings of being moved, touched, and heart-warmed; more positive ratings of the valence of the participant’s feelings; and stronger motivation to form or strengthen close relationships (all p < .001). There were no significant differences between the results from the samples of Norwegians and US Americans.

When preparing this study, we noted that most of the videos on the Internet that social media users found especially cute depicted affectionate interaction between an animal or human baby and another animal or person. We wanted to test whether affectionate interaction indeed makes videos both cuter and evokes stronger kama muta responses. So, for another study, Steinnes (2017, Steinnes et al. 2019) made pairs of comparable videos; one of each pair showed affectionately touching or licking between two cute puppies, cute kittens, or one cute animal and a human hand. The other video in each pair showed the exact same two animals or animal and a hand moving, but not touching or otherwise interacting. As predicted, the Norwegian participants rated the videos depicting affectionate interactions as cuter, and as evoking more intense sensations typical of kama muta; and responded with higher ratings of being moved, touched, and heart-warmed (p = .004 and p < .001, respectively). Moreover, ratings of the sensations partially mediated the effect of video type on cuteness ratings, and ratings of being moved, touched, or heart-warmed also partially mediated the effect of type of video on cuteness ratings. That is, as predicted, two components of the kama muta response to the videos substantially affected how cute the videos seemed to participants.

What Steinnes’ research shows is that the emotional responses that people have to kittens, puppies, bunnies, baby hedgehogs, and the like consists of at least four of the components of kama muta: a distinctive set of physical sensations, especially a warm feeling in the chest, moist eyes or tears, and goosebumps; a definitely positive feeling; labels such as moving, touching, and heart-warming; and motivation to strengthen close relationships or form new ones. I’ll have a lot more to say in this book about the kind of relationship that for the moment I am just calling ”close”; our conceptualization of the nature and dynamics of that relationship were the foundations for Steinnes’ research. I think that the joy of kama muta in response to images and videos of cute animals and human babies, as well as in response to social events, is a major motivation for posting, sharing, and liking social media content (for a similar idea about being moved by social media, see Dale et al. 2017). We will look into that a bit more in Chapter 8.

It is intriguing that there is no definite standard English, Norwegian, or German lexeme for the emotional response to cuteness (though the Uralic languages – Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian – do have lexemes for precisely this). However, there is an English slang word, squee, that comes pretty close...