Elevation Leads to Altruistic Behavior , Above and

Feelings of elevation, elicited by witnessing another perform a good deed, have been hypothesized to motivate a desire to help others (Haidt, 2003a; 2003b). However, despite growing interest in the determinants of prosocial behavior, there is only limited evidence that elevation leads to increases in actual altruism. In two experiments, we tested the relationship between elevation and helping behavior. In Experiment 1, participants experiencing elevation were more likely to volunteer for a subsequent unpaid study than were participants in a neutral state. In Experiment 2, participants experiencing elevation spent approximately twice as long helping the experimenter with a tedious task as participants experiencing mirth or a neutral emotional state. Further, feelings of elevation, but not feelings of amusement or happiness, predicted the amount of helping. Together, these results provide evidence that witnessing another’s altruistic behavior elicits elevation, a discrete emotion that, in turn, leads to tangible increases in altruism.