Analysis of the moral elevation experience in adolescents

Abstract Moral elevation is the emotional response resulting from witnessing acts of moral goodness. This moral emotion has been described in adults as a multi-component experience that includes cognitions (e.g., an optimistic view towards humanity), feelings (e.g., being moved and inspired), physical sensations (e.g., lump in the throat), and action tendencies (e.g., social connectedness and prosocial behaviour). Despite the significance of adolescence in moral development, research on moral elevation during this period is scarce. The present study aims to address this research gap by conducting a qualitative study of the emotional experiences of 144 Spanish adolescents (aged 10–15 years). The study involved exposing participants to a video designed to induce moral elevation and prompting them to recall a previous instance in which they had witnessed an act of moral beauty. The resulting self-reported emotional reactions were then subjected to lexical analysis using Iramuteq software. The analysis yielded three key findings: 1) the participants were emotionally moved by the video; 2) the video elicited emotions associated with social connectedness; and 3) recalling the past experience triggered optimistic thoughts about humanity. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that adolescent participants had experienced moral elevation. The findings are discussed in the context of previous literature on this subject.