The emotion of being moved has recently attracted increasing attention in psychology due to its unique capacity to promote social bonding. While preliminary studies have suggested that the experience of being moved can facilitate interpersonal connection and prosocial behavior, current literature lacks a systematic framework that captures the multilayered nature of its social effects and explains the underlying psychological mechanisms. This review addresses this theoretical gap by proposing a dual-layered model of the social bonding effects of being moved and by integrating two distinct theoretical pathways to explain how such effects occur.
A core conceptual distinction introduced in this review is between direct bonding effects and extended bonding effects. Direct bonding refers to the enhancement of perceived intimacy, trust, and affiliation between the individual and the immediate elicitor of the emotional experience. This may involve a person, a group, or a symbolic event. For instance, witnessing a soldier reunite with their family, or watching a charitable act, may evoke strong feelings of closeness toward the actor or the cause. Extended bonding, in contrast, refers to a generalized tendency to connect emotionally with entities beyond the initial trigger, including out-group members, humanity as a whole, or even abstract or non-human targets such as nature, national identity, or symbolic artifacts. This distinction offers a more refined framework to understand the varying levels of social impact that being moved can exert.
To clarify the psychological mechanisms behind these effects, two major theoretical perspectives are examined and synthesized: Communal Sharing Reinforcement Theory and the Meaning Salience Model. The former, grounded in relational models theory and evolutionary psychology, conceptualizes being moved as a response to the intensification of communal sharing relations. According to this view, emotional elevation is triggered when individuals witness or experience relational behaviors involving care, sacrifice, or unity that signal deep communal affiliation. The experience of being moved then strengthens affiliative tendencies through automatic emotional pathways rooted in evolved attachment systems. Thus, being moved may serve as an affective shortcut to enhancing trust, empathy, and social closeness.
In contrast, the Meaning Salience Model focuses on the cognitive and motivational dimensions of the emotion. It posits that being moved arises from the salience of core moral or social values perceived in a given context—such as solidarity, justice, or altruism. The emotion is a signal of recognition of those values, which in turn motivates individuals to engage in behavior aligned with them. Under this model, being moved not only strengthens current social ties but also encourages individuals to expand their social identity and affiliations in ways that reflect internalized value systems. Importantly, this process is not automatic but involves deliberate meaning-making and moral appraisal.
These two mechanisms—automatic communal attachment and value-based meaning construction—are proposed as complementary rather than competing. In many emotionally rich contexts, both mechanisms may operate simultaneously. For instance, a public memorial ceremony might trigger immediate emotional identification with mourners (via communal reinforcement), while also prompting reflection on the importance of collective memory, sacrifice, or national identity (via meaning salience). This integrated view accommodates both the immediacy of affective responses and the broader, long-term sociocultural effects that being moved may elicit.
Empirical evidence supporting this dual-pathway framework is drawn from a variety of domains, including interpersonal communication, political messaging, social marketing, psychotherapy, and intergroup dialogue. For example, studies have shown that narratives or videos evoking feelings of being moved can reduce intergroup prejudice, increase donations to prosocial causes, and foster reconciliation between formerly hostile communities. These effects are observed not only in interactions with known others but also in parasocial, symbolic, or imagined relationships—suggesting that the emotion of being moved is a versatile and scalable social bonding mechanism.
This review contributes to the literature in several key ways. First, it offers a novel conceptual distinction that parses the social impact of being moved into direct and extended dimensions. Second, it synthesizes two influential but previously separate theoretical models into an integrative explanatory framework. Third, it identifies boundary conditions and individual differences—such as empathic sensitivity, cultural background, or trait-level proneness to being moved—that may moderate the effect of the emotion on social bonding. Finally, the review outlines directions for future research, including experimental manipulation of contextual features (e.g., intimacy vs. value emphasis) to disentangle the relative contributions of the two mechanisms.
In conclusion, being moved is not merely a fleeting emotional experience; it plays a critical role in sustaining and expanding social relationships. By enhancing both immediate interpersonal connection and broader affiliative orientation, it may serve as an underappreciated emotional pathway to social cohesion, mutual understanding, and cooperation in an increasingly divided world.
