Your throat tightens, tears start to form in your eyes, and you’re overcome by an intense, heart-warming feeling. That’s kama muta — the feeling of being deeply moved by love or togetherness.
It means “moved by love” in Sanskrit. People also call it being “touched,” “moved to tears,” or “verklempt,” or having “the feels,” among many other terms.
You might feel it while singing the national anthem, dancing in a group, watching a movie in which people come together bravely for a common goal, or watching a dog and baby snuggling in a cute video online.
But kama muta isn’t just a nice feeling. It’s a key factor shaping how we behave toward others.
What exactly is it?
As with the feeling of kama muta, the definition can be hard to pin down, but kama muta is a universal human experience.
At its core, it’s an overwhelming positive, warm feeling that happens when we see or experience a sudden surge in social closeness or communal sharing.
Many people experience it — across 19 different countries in one study — but researchers have only recently proposed and measured the concept of kama muta to unify its facets under one label.
What does kama muta feel like in the body?
When you’re feeling kama muta, it’s obvious.
Research has shown that people who are feeling peak kama muta typically experience a combination of warmth, goosebumps, and tears.
Researchers have found that the most common physical sensations include:
- Warmth in the chest
- Moist eyes or actual tears
- Pleasant chills or goosebumps
- Feeling choked up or having a lump in your throat
- Sensation of feeling light or elevated
- Feeling exhilarated, full of energy, or optimistic
These physical indicators are highly correlated across different cultures.
It’s also important to note that researchers have found kama muta is not the same thing as sadness, awe, or joy.
What triggers this feeling?
Kama muta doesn’t happen randomly. Researchers have found it’s triggered when we experience sudden and intense social closeness or sharing.
These “intensifications” occur when the bond between people (or between a person and a group or bigger entity) becomes stronger or more apparent. They come on suddenly.
Common life events that often evoke kama muta include watching or experiencing:
- Shared life events: Such as certain moments during the birth of a child, weddings, graduations, and funerals, in which people participating experience sudden increased closeness.
- Reunions: Reuniting with a loved one after a long absence.
- Acts of kindness: Receiving kindness or witnessing a sacrifice someone makes for others.
- Expressions of love: Such as watching or experiencing someone say “I love you,” or saying it yourself.
- Connection with the divine or nature: Feeling a sudden “oneness” with nature or a union with divinity.
- Being in certain places: Being present at memorial monuments, shrines, places of worship, historical locations, and other places that make you feel connected to something bigger than yourself can bring on kama muta.
- Listening to or making music: When it makes you feel connected with something bigger than yourself.
- Heart-warming stories: Like watching “heart-warming” videos of acts of love, care among strangers, and other touching narratives.
- Cuteness: When people experience their “heart going out” to a cute person or animal. Research has shown that people can feel even higher levels of kama muta by seeing two cute beings caring for one another — aka cuteness overload.
People usually don’t get kama muta spontaneously. Many elements in worldwide culture have developed over time to evoke it on purpose — such as grieving traditions that foster togetherness and nostalgia, sports rituals that stoke team spirit, and heart-warming social media videos.
Kama muta videos
You can find out what kama muta feels like yourself by watching these videos that researchers in one study used to trigger the feeling in their research participants (we cried):
- Soldier coming home 1
- Soldier coming home 2
- Color blind man
- Nivea commercial
- Kettlebell commercial
- Veggie soup
- Unsung hero
- Lost dog Budweiser Super Bowl commercial
- Christian the lion
- Christmas homecoming ad
Who experiences kama muta most?
Some people experience kama muta more than others, research has shown. People with certain personality traits linked to social behavior tend to get it more often.
One study showed 263 people kama-muta-evoking videos that featured a mixture of reunions, altruistic acts, and cuteness. The researchers found that people with the following personality traits experienced kama muta more:
- Empathy — especially the ability to feel other people’s emotions
- The tendency to have strong emotional responses
- Mindfulness and spirituality
- Openness
- Desire for relationships and social connection
Women also tend to experience kama muta more than men, and younger people more than older people.
Why do we get kama muta?
Humans may have evolved kama muta for good reason.
Experts suggest it leads people to want to behave in ways that promote group well-being, which may increase group members’ survival and reproduction.
Because kama muta feels rewarding, researchers believe it can spur people to take part in prosocial behavior. They may want to seek out more kama muta by reconnecting and sharing with others and contributing to the community.
This could look like participating in shared rituals, wearing similar clothing, sharing resources, and more.
Kama muta is thought to motivate people to express devotion or commitment.
Kama muta can be used to manipulate people
Kama muta can make uniting together with others feel very good, which is why so many cultural practices have been honed over time to evoke it, experts argue.
Charismatic leaders know how to harness it in the people they lead. This can result in people working together toward positive goals, or it can lead down a dark path, some experts say.
Psychology professors Alan Page Fiske, Thomas W. Schubert, and Beate Seibt wrote in 2025:
“Genocidal dictators, leaders of vicious gangs, and malevolent populists also evoke kama muta to attract followers who perceive the emotion as legitimizing the populist’s authority. … Feeling united, a group of people may enjoy the wonderful kama muta feeling, but what that group is capable of doing because of their thrilling kama muta experience may be wonderful or horrific.”
Further reading
For a deeper understanding of social connectedness and related ideas, explore these articles on Relationship Smart:
- What Are Your Love Languages? & What the Research Says
- Feeling Disconnected: AI, Social Isolation, Block Parties, and Health
- 29 Super-Fun Family Board Games to Pull Out Over the Holidays
- What Is Oxytocin? The Love Hormone, Explained
Health and science writer and founder of Relationship Smart, Stephanie believes the world of our minds is real, important, and studyable, and that our social relationships are core to our well-being — much more than we give them credit for. She created Relationship Smart to explore the endless ways our relationships affect us, and to answer all your burning questions about them with scientific rigor and sensitivity.