Admiration: A Conceptual Review

Knowns and Unknowns

Admiration involves feeling positive about the achievement of an excellent other. But so do elevation, gratitude, and awe, and to understand more about admiration we need to know how it differs from related emotions. Although some work has distinguished admiration and gratitude (Algoe & Haidt, 2009) and admiration and elevation (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Immordino-Yang et al., 2009), no empirical work distinguishes between admiration and awe. We discuss some possible avenues for future research in what follows.

The distinction between admiration and envy is also intriguing. As individuals, we know that admiration feels pleasant and envy unpleasant, but why do such feelings arise? Does envy feel unpleasant so it can motivate improvement in order to avoid negative consequences associated with comparing to a better other (van de Ven et al., 2011, Study 4), or, on the contrary, is admiration pleasant in order to attract people to role models they can learn from (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001)? With limited empirical evidence on either side of this question, further experimental contributions are needed to answer these questions. In the section on admiration’s elicitors, we discuss some future research avenues regarding the distinct elicitors of admiration and envy, as well as their motivational role.

Future Directions

We mentioned that no empirical evidence distinguishes between admiration and awe; however, theoretical premises can be used to construct testable hypotheses. Keltner and Haidt (2003) proposed that admiration is felt toward excellent others and motivates self-improvement, while awe is felt towards those who are of such exceptional ability that all we can do in response is to passively wonder and assert our submission. This distinction and its consequences are easily testable by experimentally varying the degree of excellence in a comparison target. For instance, imagine a student interested in computer science. Would he feel admiration or awe for a fellow student who is the best in computer science in their class? How about a fellow student who manages to program a very complex game in her spare time and goes on to win a national computer science competition and a substantial cash prize? Theory would predict that admiration is the more likely response in the former situation, while awe more likely in the latter.

The proposed distinctiveness of behaviors associated with admiration and awe can also be tested based on Keltner and Haidt’s (2003) predictions. When the fellow student is top of the class, the perceiver (who feels admiration) should feel inspired to learn from her and feel motivated to achieve better grades. However, when comparing himself with a national competition winner, he should feel higher levels of awe and not be motivated to achieve a similar performance. In turn, he should exhibit submission, for example, by being more likely to accept to work as the other student’s apprentice in her next project. Such manipulation of an excellent target’s performance level in an experimental setting provides the opportunity of testing the relationship between admiration and awe and the consequences of each.

The previous example relates to the important, yet unresolved, aspect of admiration’s definition: its level of arousal and approach function (Russell, 1980). Several works on admiration construed it as an emotion that facilitates the approach of successful others and motivates the admirer to learn from these models (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Haidt & Seder, 2009; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Smith, 2000), which suggests that admiration is an approach emotion that is highly energizing (see also Immordino-Yang & Sylvan, 2010). However, some writers describe admiration as a passive emotion and relate it to passive relationship consequences (Cuddy et al., 2007; van de Ven et al., 2011). We discuss these differing points of view in the following sections.

Eliciting Admiration

Research has generally elicited admiration by either asking people to think of someone they admire or by presenting them with novel admirable models. To employ reminiscence of past experiences, Algoe and Haidt (2009) asked participants to think of a time when they witnessed an admirable person ¹ (see also Schindler, Paech, & Löwenbrück, 2015); similarly, van de Ven et al. (2011, Study 2) simply asked participants to remember a situation in which they felt admiration.

Consistent with the view that the essential cognitive appraisal preceding admiration is the skill or virtue of another, researchers have also used novel role models to elicit admiration. Algoe and Haidt (2009, Study 2a) elicited admiration using a video taken from a documentary about basketball star Michael Jordan “and depicted scenes of him ‘flying’ through the air to dunk the basketball into the net” (p. 113). In a follow-up study (2b), the authors asked participants to keep a diary of events of the type they saw in the video of the previous study, therefore creating the opportunity for admiration to be elicited by a wide range of events participants encountered in their daily lives (for other studies using novel models to elicit admiration, see Immordino-Yang et al., 2009; van de Ven et al., 2011).

Measuring Admiration

Knowns and Unknowns

Most studies on admiration have employed self-report measures, and only one study employed some ANS response and brain state measures. A much wider range of methods could potentially be used, which could provide important theoretical insights into the nature of admiration. Please see Table 2 for a summary of the methods employed in the study of admiration, along with the dimensions of admiration that could be tested employing these methods (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). Next, we outline some limitations and caveats of current methods, as well as suggestions for the employment of additional methodologies.

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Table 2.

Measures of admiration: Summary.

Measure		Theoretical implications	Employed in
Self-report	Emotion lists	The subjective experience of admiration	Algoe and Haidt (2009); Cuddy et al. (2007); Fiske et al. (2002)
	Scales	The subjective experience of admiration	Onu et al. (2015a, 2015b); Schindler et al. (2015)
	Interview	In-depth exploration of the subjective experience of admiration	No studies found employing this method
ANS response	Heart rate	Level of arousal of admiration	Immordino-Yang et al. (2009)
	Respiration rate	Level of arousal of admiration	Immordino-Yang et al. (2009)
	Galvanic skin response	Level of arousal of admiration	No studies found employing this method
	Startle response	Level of arousal of admiration	No studies found employing this method
Brain state	fMRI	Investigates the cognitive processes surrounding admiration (e.g., for instance, useful in determining the appraisals associated with the elicitation of admiration as well as connected behaviors)	Immordino-Yang et al. (2009)
	EEG	Provides insight on the placement of admiration on the approach–avoidance continuum	No studies found employing this method
Behavioral measures	Facial expression	Could indicate emotional specificity – admiration’s unique physiological manifestation	No studies found employing this method for measurement (cf. Adolphs, Baron-Cohen, & Tranel, 2002, who employed an admiring expression to elicit admiration)
	Voice characteristics	Could indicate emotional specificity, as well as indicate the level of arousal	No studies found employing this method

Future Directions

To measure admiration, most studies have used self-report measures, such as scales or single-item measures. Self-report measures increase in accuracy when they relate to currently experienced emotions rather than emotions one has felt in the past (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). Based on this evidence, studies eliciting admiration for a novel target using a narrative might yield more valid results than those asking participants to remember a time when they felt admiration. Narratives, on the other hand, may impose situations on participants that may not reflect their individual experience of the emotion. One solution to measure individually experienced current emotion is to ask participants to keep a diary of specific emotional events (see Algoe & Haidt, 2009, Study 2b). Self-report measures are also affected by participants’ motivation to respond in a socially desirable way. Most research has focused on participants playing down their ratings of negative emotions (Mauss & Robinson, 2009); however, the same effect may lead participants to report higher admiration, especially when positive and negative emotions are addressed in the same study. As well, in certain circumstances, feeling admiration could be socially undesirable. Evidence suggests, for instance, that lower status social groups might feel favorably towards higher status groups, although they will not report this in self-report measures (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). These limitations need to be considered when using self-report measures.

Self-report measures seem the obvious first step in researching a relatively unstudied emotion such as admiration, but other methods could be employed as complements. For instance, ANS response measures (e.g., electrodermal and cardiovascular responses) would be very useful in determining the level of arousal associated with admiration. ANS response has only been measured in one study, as a secondary measure with a very small sample (Immordino-Yang et al., 2009). Given the debates surrounding the passive or active nature of admiration described earlier, the measurement of this ANS response could advance theory on admiration by indicating its level of arousal compared to other emotions. Another debated issue is admiration’s place on the approach–avoidance continuum (Russell, 2003). Electro-encephalographical (EEG) assessment of frontal activation in the brain is related to approach motivation (left hemisphere) and avoidance motivation (right hemisphere) in emotional assessment (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). EEG has not been employed in the measurement of admiration, and this method could shed light on the approach–avoidance nature of this emotion.

Behavioral measures have not been employed in the measurement of admiration. These measures might include the identification of vocal characteristics (amplitude, pitch), unique facial expression, whole-body behavior, and so on (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). Based on the assumption that discrete emotions have such strong individuality in facial expression and behavior that they are recognizable by an observer (Ekman, 1992), future research should describe the unique observable features accompanying admiration. Based on such a list of features, research could employ observer ratings alongside other measures of admiration, by-passing some of the issues surrounding self-report discussed before. Furthermore, vocal characteristics such as pitch are related to the degree of emotional activation (Bänziger & Scherer, 2005), so the study of pitch in admiration could help clarify whether admiration is indeed an energizing emotion.

Competence

We defined admiration as the emotion elicited by those of competence exceeding standards (in line with Algoe & Haidt, 2009). This definition is also consistent with research conducted in an intergroup setting, where Fiske et al. (2002) found that admiration characterizes how group members feel toward out-groups that are seen to be competent, regardless of whether they are perceived as warm or not (Study 4). In the social comparison literature, admiration is seen to be the positive emotion elicited during upward comparison (Smith, 2000; van de Ven et al., 2011), leading to the view that admiration is elicited when the admirer is less competent than the admired. While it may often be the case that admiration is elicited when the perceiver is less competent than the target of admiration, admiration can also occur when people are equally competent, but both of a level of skill or performance exceeding standards. For instance, an accomplished athlete can admire another equally accomplished athlete, recognizing her excellence.

Some studies have focused on competence in the context of hierarchies (i.e., status or prestige), as well as competence as understood within particular social groups (i.e., prototypicality). We review these results in the following lines.

Attainability

In the context of upward comparison, Smith (2000) proposed that admiration occurs only when people believe they have the potential to become like the admired. Algoe and Haidt (2009) consider admiration’s motivational output to be inspiration (Thrash & Elliot, 2004) to pursue one’s goals, which in turn is more likely to occur when the target’s position is attainable (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Schindler et al., 2013). This is also consistent with the view that admiration evolved to facilitate learning from role models (Haidt & Seder, 2009; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001)—if admiration is functional for improvement, then it should become active only when improvement is possible. In the same vein, Onu et al. (2015a) found similar effects for group-based admiration. By manipulating how likely improvement was for the group, they found that participants reported higher levels of admiration for an outgroup only when they believed their own group was likely to improve in the future. However, van de Ven et al. (2011, Study 4) report the opposite effect, finding higher levels of admiration when change is unattainable.

Knowns and Unknowns

High competence has been the focus of most research concerning the antecedents of admiration. Whether authors define it as general competence (Cuddy et al., 2007; Fiske et al., 2002) or related concepts, such as skill or talent (Algoe & Haidt, 2009), legitimate status (Onu et al., 2015b; Sweetman et al., 2013), or prototypicality (Onu et al., 2015a), they seem to generally agree that possessing a degree of excellence is a prerequisite for being admired. Nonetheless, research conducted on this category of elicitors offers opportunities to extend the results to different levels of analysis and test results at the intergroup and interpersonal level respectively. We discuss some possible avenues next. For a general overview of research on admiration’s elicitors, please refer to Table 3.

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Table 3.

Elicitors of admiration.

Elicitor	Manifestations	Relation to admiration	Investigated in
Excellence	Ability, skills	Positive	Algoe & Haidt (2009); Immordino-Yang et al. (2009)
	Competence	Positive	Cuddy et al. (2007); Fiske et al. (2002); Onu et al. (2015a)
	Prestige	Positive	Fessler & Haley (2003) – theoretical only
	Legitimate status / deservingness	Positive	Onu et al. (2015b); van de Ven et al. (2011)
	Prototypicality	Positive	Onu et al. (2015a)
Attainability		Debated relation:	(a) Onu et al. (2015b)
		(a) Positive	(b) Van de Ven et al. (2011)
		(b) Negative

Future Directions

Little empirical work overall has focused on the elicitors of admiration. One of the interesting avenues for future research is the relation of admiration to prototypicality for a particular group. If admiration is elicited by people of competence exceeding standards, then it is important to explore whose standards are considered. Considering prototypicality (defined in terms of the group’s ideal; van Knippenberg, 2011) as an antecedent of admiration would help clarify the way in which group-defined standards determine when admiration is elicited. For instance, research could test whether members of a group who are seen as more prototypical do indeed elicit more admiration from other group members. An interesting expansion of this research could be to experimentally manipulate the extent to which a person identifies with one group or another (e.g., by asking them to spend time thinking about what they have in common or how they are different from other group members). We would expect admiration for highly prototypical individuals to be stronger for perceivers who identify highly with the group. Given that social group members often choose leaders who best embody the identity of their group (Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2012), admiration might describe the emotional response of followers towards prototypical leaders.

Another issue related to the excellence of the admiration target concerns the domain of excellence. Smith (2000) argued that admiration occurs in those domains that are relevant and important to the self and one’s goals. Van de Ven et al. (2011), on the other hand, proposed the opposite—admiration will occur for high performing others in domains that are not directly relevant (and thus not threatening) to the admirer. None of these studies, though, assessed how important the domain was for the person, and exploring the moderating role of goal relevance of the domain would be a good avenue for further research.

The most striking contradiction in empirical data so far relates to the conditions under which others’ competence becomes an elicitor for admiration. Here, more empirical work is needed to elucidate the role of attainability in the elicitation of admiration. As shown earlier, while some results suggest that attainable performance leads to admiration (Onu et al., 2015b), others suggest that, on the contrary, unattainable conditions lead to admiration (van de Ven et al., 2011). Both assumptions stem from a functionalist view of admiration. Those who believe that admiration is energizing for self-improvement (following the theoretical conception of Henrich & Gil-White, 2001) will assume that it is only natural for admiration to be activated only when improvement is possible. However, van de Ven et al.’s (2011) argument is based on data demonstrating that admiration (as opposed to benign envy) is a pleasant but passive state, so it only makes sense for its activation to occur with unattainable higher performance.

One possible explanation for van de Ven et al.’s (2011) contrasting result may be their experimental situation. Across four studies, the target of admiration was a capable fellow student. In Study 4, they introduced attainability as control over one’s fate (by priming that intelligence is either malleable or fixed). They found that participants in the attainable conditions (who believe intelligence is malleable) felt greater envy for a superior student and marginally lower levels of admiration; this result was interpreted to show that there is a negative relationship between appraisals of attainability and admiration. However, the experimental situation may have signaled a particular type of attainability: past feasibility (i.e., the perception that “it could have been me”) as opposed to future feasibility (i.e., expectations that we will achieve our goal in the future, “it could be me”; Cook, Crosby, & Hennigan, 1977). Although both past and future feasibility reflect expectations of goal attainability, they produce very different effects following comparison with a better other—high past feasibility is associated with higher resentment and higher defensive reactions following upward social comparison, while high future feasibility is associated with lower resentment (Bernstein & Crosby, 1980). Therefore, the manner in which attainability is defined and manipulated will probably produce different consequences for admiration. Future research can elucidate the role of attainability by disentangling the two forms of past and future attainability and their relation to admiration. We suggest that attainability as a future-focused perspective is the dimension essential for a motivating effect of admiration (see also Onu et al., 2015b).

Consequences for the Admirer

Algoe and Haidt (2009) found that admiration will be experienced physically as an energizing sensation that motivates modeling and working harder towards one’s success. To facilitate imitation, admirers are likely to display heightened attention to the skill displayed, display prolonged gazes at the target, and seek their proximity (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Similarly, Schindler et al. (2015) have found that admiration leads to self-expansion through the emulation of an outstanding model. In an intergroup context, Onu et al. (2015b) have also found that group-based admiration is associated with a desire for intergroup learning. However, in a series of studies assessing admiration’s relation to actual performance on a task, van de Ven et al. (2011) found that admiration does not stimulate higher performance.

Consequences for the Relationship

Algoe and Haidt (2009) also found specific relationship consequences following admiration; participants who felt admiration reported intentions to enhance the reputation of the admired target by praising them to others, and to acknowledge their performance. Several studies link group-based admiration with positive consequences for intergroup relations. Surveying the attitudes of U.S. participants towards a variety of ethnic, professional, or social groups, Cuddy et al. (2007) demonstrated a positive link between intergroup admiration and two categories of behavior towards outgroups: active facilitation (helping and protecting others) and passive facilitation (cooperating or associating with others). Onu et al. (2015b) also found evidence that group-based admiration is associated with willingness to receive help from an admired outgroup. In a study on national group members’ reactions to more successful countries, they found that admiration for a high-performing outgroup is related only to a desire for autonomy-related help (e.g., receiving training or guidance to improve) from a higher status outgroup but not dependency-oriented help (e.g., donations). Admiration also characterizes how people feel towards those they see as allies and with whom they wish to cooperate (Brewer, Alexander, Mackie, & Smith, 2002).

Consequences for the Group

Henrich and Gil-White (2001) propose that admiration has a unique function for cultural transmission in human groups; admiration facilitates the approach of skillful group members and the learning of skills from them, thus facilitating the diffusion of excellent skills throughout the group. These admired individuals are also praised for their skill, increasing their prestige within the group. The authors suggest that subordinates’ admiration towards superiors characterizes a particular type of social hierarchy that is based on earned prestige. Sweetman et al. (2013) tested the effect of admiration on social hierarchy and found that admiration for higher status members promotes hierarchy maintenance.

Knowns and Unknowns

For the perceiver, admiration has been found to be associated with imitation intentions and an increased motivation to improve, for both individual (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Schindler et al., 2015) and group-based admiration (Onu et al., 2015b), although some empirical findings cast doubt on admiration’s energizing role on actual performance (van de Ven et al., 2011). As a social emotion, admiration also affects how the perceiver relates to the admiration target. Admiration is associated with wishing to praise the admired targets (Algoe & Haidt, 2009), associate or cooperate with them (Cuddy et al., 2007), or receive their guidance (Onu et al., 2015b). Admiration is also involved in the maintenance of social hierarchy in groups (Sweetman et al., 2013; see also Michel, Wallace, & Rawlings, 2013), at least when these hierarchies are based on earned prestige (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Please see Table 4 for an overview of the action tendencies associated with admiration.

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Table 4.

Consequences of admiration.

Action	Relation to admiration	Investigated in
Consequences for the admirer
Self-improvement	Debated relation:(a) Positive(b) No relation	(a) Algoe & Haidt (2009); Immordino-Yang et al. (2009); Schindler et al. (2015) (b) Van de Ven et al. (2011)
Learn / imitate	Positive	Algoe & Haidt (2009); Onu et al. (2015a); Onu et al. (2015b); Schindler et al. (2015)
Consequences for the relationship
Praising the admired	Positive	Algoe & Haidt (2009)
Willingness to receive learning-related help	Positive	Cuddy et al. (2007); Onu et al. (2015b)
Cooperation / contact	Positive	Cuddy et al. (2007)
Consequences for the group
Hierarchy change actions	Negative	Sweetman et al. (2013)

Future Directions

One of the disputed—and most interesting—aspects of admiration is its potential to motivate self-improvement. First, evidence to support the energizing potential of admiration is limited, and more physiological response measures could be employed to test whether admiration is actually energizing (as discussed in relation to measures of admiration). If admiration does motivate improvement, it is not clear whether it only motivates improvement in the specific domain of admiration and through copying the admired (as suggested by Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Smith, 2000) or if it produces a general feeling of motivation towards becoming better in a variety of domains (as suggested by empirical evidence in Algoe & Haidt, 2009). These are valid questions for future research. Regarding self-improvement, of the few available empirical results, most studies employed scales measuring learning or self-improvement intentions. However, the inclusion of behavioral measures would represent a stronger test of the motivational effect of admiration. The effect of admiration on learning can easily be tested through recall tasks, and the effects on motivation through motivation-sensitive tasks (e.g., the Remote Associates Task used by van de Ven et al., 2011, Study 2).

In terms of relationship consequences, researchers generally agree that admiration has a variety of positive (i.e., approach) consequences, such as contact, receiving help, cooperation, or praising the admired. However, it is difficult to say whether admiration facilitates positive intentions or actual positive behavior. Given that the studies cited before measured only intentions and have not included any behavioral measures, this is a good avenue for advancing research. One notable exception is Pettigrew (1998) who measured the actual number of out-group friends participants had. For example, in relation to group-based admiration, in addition to asking participants how they feel towards outgroups and to report their intentions for intergroup contact, participants could also be asked to sign up for intergroup contact activities, or to donate to charities organizing intergroup activities and exchanges. If admiration does indeed motivate positive intergroup contact as discussed earlier, then it should not only be reflected in reported intentions, but also in intergroup behavior.

In the previous sections, we focused on past research on admiration, highlighting specific directions for future research in relation to the antecedents and consequences of admiration. In what follows, we integrate insights from past research and recent developments in emotion theory to propose a conceptual model of admiration.

Reflection on the Target’s Competence

In a recent theoretical article, Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, and Zhang (2007) challenge the commonly held assumption that emotions directly cause behavior, and propose that an essential function of emotions is to provide feedback and encourage reflection on the emotion stimulus in order to facilitate learning. For instance, feeling ashamed informs the person about the transgression of social norms and encourages them to reflect on the nature of norms and learn how to avoid such transgression in the future. The conception of emotions as serving a learning function is particularly relevant for admiration and its role in facilitating social learning. Applied to admiration, this would suggest that admiration serves to focus attention on the admired skills and facilitates memorizing these skills for future use. After all, much of social learning is not applied immediately but stored in order to be employed in the future as appropriate (Bandura, 1977). The view that admiration focuses individuals on the particular skills or techniques to be learned is consistent with admiration’s association with prolonged stares (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001) and contemplation of the target (van de Ven et al., 2011). Onu et al. (2015b) have also found that higher admiration is associated with higher recall of information about the competent target, suggesting a role for admiration in facilitating memorizing of the admiration stimulus.

Social learning is contingent on a range of processes such as heightened attention, information processing, and memory (Bandura, 1977). Considering that “emotion’s role is to focus attention on certain information and instigate further cognitive processing of it” (Baumeister et al., 2007, p. 187), it seems pertinent that admiration would be involved in instigating the heightened attention and cognitive processes that facilitate social learning. The importance of reflecting on the admired target’s competence in order to learn their skill is consistent with theory of goal implementation that posits two distinct tasks for the individual pursuing a goal: a deliberative task, where the person decides on the best course of action for goal pursuit, and an implementation stage, focused on implementing these actions (for an overview, see Gollwitzer & Bayer, 1999). For example, consider an aspiring guitarist taking part in a workshop delivered by an expert guitar player. Admiring the expert’s mastery in playing the guitar, he would probably first pay very close attention to the different actions of the expert and decide which one is most likely to produce a specific sound (the deliberative stage) and then attempt to imitate the expert’s action thought most likely to produce the desired sound (the implementation stage). Therefore, we propose that admiration facilitates the focus of attention and cognitive resources to reflect on how the admired person achieves their performance or skill, and this step is likely to be particularly important in the case of complex actions (Gollwitzer & Bayer, 1999).

The proposition that admiration is related to attention and cognitive processing preceding social learning can be subject to empirical exploration, for instance by using eye gaze measures to explore attention focus or recall tasks to test memory effects. On a broader theoretical level, admiration as an emotion performing a learning function is an ideal candidate for further exploring the role of emotions in encouraging feedback and reflection on the emotion stimulus (Baumeister et al., 2007).

Imitation

Admiration, however, is not just associated with reflection; it energizes the admirer towards social learning. Algoe and Haidt (2009) found that participants reported admiration to be associated with increased energy, heart rate, and muscle tension, suggesting action readiness. We argue that this action readiness is geared towards emulating the skill of the target, so that admiration is associated with an action tendency (Frijda, 1986) to imitate the admired skill or technique. This tendency to imitate is supported by admiration’s association with intentions to learn from the admired person or group (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Onu et al., 2015b; Schindler et al., 2015; Sweetman et al., 2013), and reflects admiration’s function for social learning (Fessler & Haley, 2003; Haidt & Seder, 2009; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). As noted earlier, however, empirical evidence for its energizing role is equivocal. However, the proposition that admiration is associated with an action tendency for social learning does not imply that the act of imitation will occur each time a person feels admiration. Whether imitation of an admired model does occur will depend on contextual and motivational factors, such as whether modeling is appropriate in the situation (Bandura, 1977) and whether it is consistent with the person’s goals (Gergely, Bekkering, & Király, 2002). Drawing on goal-directed action research, likely moderators of the relationship between admiring and reflecting on the target’s competence, on the one hand, and pursuing imitation, on the other, are the feasibility of imitation (whether it can be done at the time) and its desirability (whether it is beneficial within the given context; Gollwitzer & Bayer, 1999). Rather than seeking to establish whether admiration does instigate behavior or not, it may be more useful for future research to look at such moderating variables in the relation of admiration to modeling.

Thus, we propose that admiration is associated with a tendency to imitate the admired target, but that motivational and situational factors will determine whether the act of imitation does occur. Algoe and Haidt (2009) have found that participants report feeling more energized to achieve their goals in general, and not only to imitate the specific admired skill. This tendency to pursue general achievement may be due to participants not necessarily admiring the particular skill of the admiration target, but a higher order ability or trait (such as perseverance or ambition). It may also be due to a general propensity of positive emotions to encourage self-transcendence, including working harder to pursue one’s goals (Fredrickson, 2001).