William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Admiration (1897)

Admiration is a social emotion felt by observing people of competence, talent, or skill exceeding standards.Algoe, S. B., & Haidt, J. (2009). Witnessing excellence in action: The ‘other-praising’ emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admiration. The journal of positive psychology, 4(2), 105–127. Admiration facilitates social learning in groups.Haidt, J., & Seder, P. (2009). Admiration and Awe. Oxford Companion to Affective Science (pp. 4–5). New York: Oxford University Press. Admiration motivates self-improvement through learning from role-models.Smith, R. H. (2000). Assimilative and contrastive emotional reactions to upward and downward social comparisons. Handbook of social comparison: Theory and research, 173–200.

Definition

Sara Algoe and

Jonathan Haidt Jonathan David Haidt (; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of ...

include admiration in the category of other-praising

emotions Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

, alongside awe,

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

, and

gratitude Gratitude, thankfulness, or gratefulness is from the Latin word ''gratus,'' which means "pleasing" or "thankful." Is regarded as a feeling of appreciation (or similar positive response) by a recipient of another's kindness. This can be gifts, h ...

. They propose that admiration is the emotion we feel towards non-moral excellence (i.e., witnessing an act of excellent skill), while elevation is the emotion we feel towards moral excellence (i.e., witnessing someone perform an act of exceeding virtue). Other authors term both these emotions as ''admiration'', distinguishing between ''admiration for skill'' and ''admiration for virtue''.Immordino-Yang, M. H., McColl, A., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. (2009). Neural correlates of admiration and compassion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(19), 8021. Richard Smith categorises admiration as an other-focused assimilative emotion, leading people to aspire to be like (assimilate to) those they admire. He contrasts admiration with envy (an other-focused contrastive emotion), proposing that envy leads us to feel frustrated about the competence of others, while admiration is uplifting and motivating.

Function

Learning of skills has been so important to our evolution that we have come to feel positively about talented or skillful people, in order to approach them and copy their actions. Admiration is the emotion that facilitates learning in social groups.

Relation to attainability

Following from the view that admiration's function is learning and self-improvement, some authors have proposed that admiration will only activate when we believe improvement is possible for us, however one empirical study has suggested the opposite, that admiration is akin to passive contemplation of another's superiority, while envy is the motivating emotion which activates when a better performance is attainable to us.

Associated behaviours

Behaviours concerning the self

Witnessing admirable acts has been shown to increase motivation for self-improvement in the domain of witnessed excellence (e.g., sporting performance), but also a more general motivation to work towards achieving one's own life goals. Using

fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...

, admiration has been shown to be related with higher-level cognitive processes involved in motivation (e.g., planning, pursuit of goals), but also relates to lower-level activating mechanisms, demonstrating that admiration is a physically energising emotion.

Behaviours concerning the relationship

Admiration is also associated with a tendency to praise the admired act to others, and a desire for contact and proximity with the admired.Cuddy, A. J. ., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2007). The BIAS map: Behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(4), 631.

Group-based

Admiration has also been studied in an intergroup context by

Susan Fiske Susan Tufts Fiske (born August 19, 1952) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University. She is a social psychologist known for her work on social cognition, stereotypes, ...

and her colleagues. They propose that admiration is the emotion we feel towards those social groups we perceive as competent (or high-status) and warm (friendly and cooperative) (e.g., in studies involving students in the US, an example of a group perceived as competent and warm is ''the British'').Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 878–902. Admiration is related to intentions to associate, cooperate with, and help members from groups that are admired.

References

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