Media psychologists have long puzzled over how individuals can experience enjoyment from entertainment such as tragedies that often elicit profound feelings of sadness. The present research examines the idea that a focus on ''meaningful'' entertainment and affective responses identified as ''elevation'' may provide a framework for understanding many examples of sad or dramatic entertainment. The results of this study suggest that many types of meaningful cinematic entertainment feature portrayals of moral virtues (e.g., altruism). These portrayals, in turn, elicit feelings of elevation (e.g., inspiration) that are signified in terms of mixed affect and unique physical responses (e.g., lump in throat). Ultimately, elevation also gives rise to motivations to embody moral virtues, such as being a better person or helping others.doi:10.1111/j. 1468-2958.2012.01427.x The assumed importance of positive affect in media enjoyment is reflected in a number of notable entertainment theories. For example, disposition theory generally argues that viewers experience the greatest pleasure (and hence enjoyment) when liked characters are depicted as triumphant and disliked characters as castigated or suffering (Zillmann, 1991). Likewise, mood-management theory conceptualizes entertainment consumption in hedonistic terms, arguing that the termination of negative moods and the maintenance of positive moods guide many entertainment choices (Zillmann, 2000).The emphasis placed on positive affect has resulted in considerable theorizing among scholars who have tried to understand the seeming paradoxical enjoyment of entertainment that fails to conform to hedonic considerations. In particular, scholars have presented a variety of explanations to try to account for the enjoyment of sad or tragic entertainment, and how or why viewers may experience gratification from entertainment that features beloved characters suffering and that successfully elicits sadness and tears among audience members. Among the many explanations that Corresponding author: Mary Beth Oliver; e-mail: mbo@psu.edu Elevation and Moral Virtuehave been considered are the idea that the experience and expression of sadness may be cathartic (Cornelius, 1997), that tragedies may provide viewers the opportunity to engage in downward-social comparison (Mares & Cantor, 1992), or that at a meta-emotional level, viewers may find some enjoyment or gratification in feeling sadness (e.g., ''wallowing in grief'') (Bartsch, Vorderer, Mangold, & Viehoff, 2008;Oliver, 1993;Zillmann, 1998).In this article, we do not want to suggest that extant research on the enjoyment of sad films or tragedies is misplaced. Rather, our intention is to provide an additional perspective on this seemingly puzzling enjoyment by broadening the conceptualization of audiences' responses. Specifically, in this article, we test the idea that many forms of meaningful entertainment (including many sad films) may elicit feelings of elevation-an other-praising affective response to witnessing moral beauty that ...

I.; and Chung, Mun-Youn, "Video games as meaningful entertainment experiences" (2015).

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The majority of research on media counter‐stereotyping of race/ethnicity has tended to employ positive portrayals or counter‐stereotypical exemplars as a primary strategy in eliciting positive attitudes among White participants. In contrast, this article reports the results of an experiment on the unique role of affective responses to media messages as a mechanism in inducing greater feelings of connectedness with a diversity of racial/ethnic groups. Our focus is on the affective response of elevation specifically, which refers to feelings of being moved, touched, and inspired by images of people engaged in morally beautiful acts such as love, generosity, and kindness. Results show that the experience of elevation in response to inspiring videos was associated with heightened feelings of overlap between the self and humanity, with this overlap associated with greater feelings of connectedness with those from a diversity of racial/ethnic groups. This connection was also associated with more favorable attitudes.

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