Kama muta: the powerful emotion you didn’t know you had

Goosebumps, tears, a sense of solidarity… There’s a name for that feeling, and its manifestations – from Swifties handing out friendship bracelets to strong responses to political messaging – can bring good and ill

I am about 20 minutes into my conversation with the psychological anthropologist Alan Fiske when he starts talking about a lost kitten. “If you saw it outside, you would go pick it up and stop it getting run over by a truck, check if it’s hungry, and make sure it’s warm and safe,” he says. “Your heart goes out to it.”

I’m not an ardent cat lover, and I don’t consider myself to be an especially soppy person, but his words send chills down my neck. I feel something open in my chest and my eyes start prickling.

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