Rethinking self-transcendent positive emotions and religion: Insights from psychological and biblical research.

At the heart of many religious and spiritual traditions is the aspiration to transcend the self to achieve a sense of connectedness with the world and/or with a Higher Power and to serve the greater good. Recent research suggests that the emergence of such self-transcendence can be facilitated by specific uplifting emotions termed self-transcendent positive emotions (STPEs); STPEs are short, positive responses to witnessing instances of beauty or good outside the self. The author reviews the defining characteristics of STPEs and the related current empirical research in psychology. Next, still building upon research in psychology, she examines how they are intertwined with spirituality and religion (beliefs and practices) and serve important functions when experienced in a religious context. The emerging biblical research on how positive emotions are constructed in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament is the studied, and how the religious context may modify the interpretation and phenomenological experience of positive emotions is discussed. Future avenues for research include the study of the specific emotion of joy and a better consideration of emotion's embodiment.

Duke Scholars

Author Patty Van Cappellen Social Science Research Institute