Kama Muta (≈ Being Moved) Helps Connect People in and to Nature: A Photo Elicitation Approach

Seeking Communal Emotions in Social Practices That Culturally Evolved to Evoke Emotions: Worship, Kitten Videos, Memorials, Narratives of Love, and More

In many instances, emotions do not simply happen to people by chance. Often, people actively seek out an emotion by engaging in practices that have culturally evolved to evoke that emotion. Such practices tend to be perpetuated and spread if people want to experience the emotion, like to recall it and tell others about it, want to give the emotion to others and experience it together, and/or regard the emotion as a sign of something wonderful. We illustrate this with a newly delineated emotion, kama muta. Many social practices around the world are structured to evoke kama muta. In those culturally evolved practices, and outside them, what typically evokes kama muta is a sudden intensification of communal sharing, or a sudden shift of attention to a communal sharing relationship. It seems probable that other social-relational emotions are also evoked by sudden changes in relationships or the sudden salience of a relationship. This change or saliencing may be incorporated in social practices that are perpetuated because they evoke the sought-after emotion. We suggest that such practices, as well as sudden changes in relationships that occur elsewhere, are especially promising places to discover social-relational emotions.

Outdoor health intervention for refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers: A mixed-methods pilot study

Despite the multifaceted and diverse challenges that refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers experience when entering a new country, they remain notably underrepresented in the evaluation and understanding of the health and wellbeing impacts of outdoor health interventions. We addressed this knowledge gap by a mixed-methods evaluation (questionnaires, focus groups and photo elicitation activity) facilitated by a community researcher. Qualitative data (focus groups and photo elicitation activity) revealed that the participants saw the social component of outdoor activities as a critical factor in improving their wellbeing, an insight not captured by established quantitative wellbeing scales. Given the diverse backgrounds of refugee, migrant, and asylum-seeker populations, we underline the importance of a transdisciplinary, collaborative, and mixed-methods research approach.

Moved to Norway, Then Moved by Norway: How Moments of Kama Muta Is Related With Immigrants’ Acculturation

In this paper, we investigated the relation between a positive social emotion, kama muta, and immigrants’ acculturation to Norway. Kama muta is evoked by a sudden intensification of a communal sharing relationship. Since communal sharing relationships are characterized by feeling one with others and orienting one’s actions to something they have in common, we predicted that feeling kama muta about Norway or Norwegians would enhance immigrants’ motivation to adopt Norwegian culture. We investigated this with exploratory sequential mixed methods: In Study 1, we interviewed 18 immigrants in Norway to understand in which situations the emotional experience, that can be identified as kama muta, occurs in connection to Norway and Norwegians, and how this affects acculturation to Norwegian culture. Based on the results of Study 1, we developed prompts that assessed immigrants’ kama muta experiences in connection with Norway and formulated hypotheses relating to immigrants’ bicultural identity integration, acculturation motivations, motivation to stay, and acculturative stress. In Study 2 we quantitively assessed these hypotheses in a larger sample of immigrants to Norway ( N = 142). The frequency and intensity of kama muta experiences in connection with Norway uniquely predicted immigrants’ motivation to adopt Norwegian culture, and negatively predicted acculturative stress. This suggests that kama muta can connect immigrants to their new homeland.

How Does Being Solo in Nature Affect Well-Being? Evidence from Norway, Germany and New Zealand

Background: Solo—being intentionally solitary in nature—is receiving growing attention as a valuable outdoor education program component. Its practice and history have been researched in the context of experiential learning, but few studies have explicitly examined how solo experiences can affect dimensions of well-being. This study investigated a broad range of well-being pathways provided by being solo, based on data from Norway, Germany, and New Zealand. Methods: Using qualitative content analysis (QCA), the solo debrief responses of 40 participants (26 females, age: 19–64 years) were analysed, applying the PERMA-V framework (emotions, engagement, relationship, meaning, achievement, and vitality). Variations in the reports were explored as a function of the national sample, gender, age, prior solo experiences and expectations. Results: The study suggests that hedonic and eudemonic well-being pathways, represented by the six PERMA-V pillars, interrelate strongly. The experience of a range of positive emotions and connecting process during solo highlights two of the most frequent findings related to well-being pathways. The secondary findings suggest minor variations in the well-being pathways for the different national samples, gender and age. Expectations and prior experiences with solo were identified as context factors with minor impact. Further, the data-driven analysis identified specific physical activities, landscape features, sense-activation, perception of time and ‘good’ weather as relevant to the specific experience. Conclusions: Solo experiences provide for well-being-related pathways in a multitude of ways, which highlights the well-being potential of solo implementation across practical fields beyond outdoor education, such as wilderness therapy, and environmental and planetary health initiatives. Future studies should continue to explore solo’s well-being potential in different settings, especially in the context of non-Western samples.