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We perceive natural phenomena: Gottlieb, Sara, Dacher Keltner, and Tania Lombrozo. “Awe as a Scientific Emotion.” Cognitive Science 42, no. 6 (2018): 2081–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12648. This study found that people who feel more everyday awe are less likely to engage in what is called teleological reasoning; they are less likely to attribute phenomena to the narrow purposes they might serve. The teleological mind says that “bees exist in order to facilitate pollination in plants,” that “lightning releases electricity in order to travel,” and that the enticing quality of sap lures us into protecting a tree. See also: Valdesolo, Piercarlo, Jun Park, and Sara Gottlieb. “Awe and Scientific Explanation.” Emotion 16, no. 7 (2016): 937–40. In his superb book, philosopher Daniel Dennett suggests that this insight is perhaps Darwin’s most revolutionary idea, that the world is evolving not as the result of some transcendent or Divine purpose, but due to complex systems of evolutionary forces. Dennett, Daniel. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
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the circle of care: Singer, Peter. The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
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Other participants watched the hilarious: Piff, Paul K., Pia Dietze, Matthew Feinberg, Daniel M. Stancato, and Dacher Keltner. “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108, no. 6 (2015): 883–99.
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Memphis University professor Jia Wei Zhang: Zhang, Jia W., Paul K. Piff, Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva, and Dacher Keltner. “An Occasion for Unselfing: Beautiful Nature Leads to Prosociality.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 37 (2014): 61–72.
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her hero, Jane Goodall: I would like to thank the wonderful primatologist Frans de Waal, so influential to my thinking about the human capacity for kindness and sociality, for directing me to this video. “Waterfall Displays.” Jane Goodall’s Good for All News, http://bit.ly/2r2iZ3t, accessed February 15, 2022.
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Chapter 3: Evolution of the Soul
“And if the body were”: Whitman, Walt. “I Sing the Body Electric.” In Walt Whitman: Selected Poems. New York: Dover, 1991, 12.
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I felt overcome: That tears mark our recognition of sacred forces in our lives, and in particular sacred people, is revealed in a stunning video worth watching. It is a one-minute film of a nine-month-old infant who, with new hearing aids, hears her mother’s voice for the first time. In the short clip the mom vocalizes in the musical intonations of motherese—“Hi . . .” “Are you going to cry?” “I love you.” The infant first smiles with bright eyes, and then tears up and emits a few high pitched aahs, quite clearly overwhelmed in hearing her mother’s voice for the first time. Christy Keane Can. “My baby hears me for the first time and is almost moved to tears!” YouTube video, 1:05, October 14, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Q5kO4YXFs.
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Our guides will be Charles Darwin: For an astonishing biography of Darwin’s life, his thoughts, and how he shaped the world, a must read is: Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin. Vol. 1, Voyaging. New York: Alfred Knopf; London: Jonathan Cape, 1995. Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin. Vol. 2, The Power of Place. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2002.
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Whitman observed: Wineapple, Brenda, ed. Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America as Told to Horace Traubel. New York: Random House, 2019.
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taxonomy of the tears of emotion: Lutz, Tom. Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. This book is an outstanding study of how to trace an emotional behavior through its biological and cultural history.
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Alan Fiske has proposed: Fiske, Alan P. Structures of Social Life. New York: Free Press, 1991. Fiske argues that we relate to others in one of four basic ways (and their combinations): in a communal fashion; a market-based fashion of exchange; a hierarchical fashion, as one would in a military or religious organization; and in equality-based ways, as in good friendships. This thinking has had a profound influence upon our study of emotion. It led us to think about how emotions, through their shaping of social interactions like flirtation, teasing, or ceremony, are the basic language of our relationships.
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So vital is this way of relating: These studies are part of Alan Fiske’s search to understand kama muta, the feeling of being moved by being connected to others or seeing evidence of others moving closer to one another in connection. Seibt, Beate, Thomas W. Schubert, Janis H. Zickfeld, and Alan P. Fiske. “Touching the Base: Heart-Warming Ads from the 2016 U.S. Election Moved Viewers to Partisan Tears.” Cognition and Emotion 33 (2019): 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1441128. Zickfeld, Janis H., Patricia Arriaga, Sara V. Santos, Thomas W. Schubert, and Beate Seibt. “Tears of Joy, Aesthetic Chills and Heartwarming Feelings: Physiological Correlates of Kama Muta.” Psychophysiology 57, no. 12 (2020): e13662. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13662. Blomster Lyshol, Johanna K., Lotte Thomsen, and Beate Seibt. “Moved by Observing the Love of Others: Kama Muta Evoked through Media Fosters Humanization of Out-Groups.” Frontiers in Psychology (June 24, 2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01240.
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Tears, then, arise: Vingerhoets, Ad. Why Only Humans Weep: Unravelling the Mysteries of Tears. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Children cry to signal hunger: Parsons, Christine E., Katherine S. Young, Morten Joensson, Elvira Brattico, Jonathan A. Hyam, Alan Stein, Alexander Green, Tipu Aziz, and Morten L. Kringelbach. “Ready for Action: A Role for the Human Midbrain in Responding to Infant Vocalizations.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 9 (2014): 977–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst076.
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that twenty-first-century malaise: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls loneliness a “social recession,” and treats it as comparable in its influence upon the health of nations with economic recessions. Murthy, Vivek. Together: The Healing Power of Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. New York: HarperCollins, 2020.