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The target article by Menninghaus et al. provides a novel and intuitively compelling account of why people seek out and enjoy art which elicits negative emotions in the perceiver. This seemingly counter-hedonic behavior (with pro-hedonic consequences) certainly deserves a theoretical explanation. In this commentary, I propose an additional dimension to the Distancing-Embracing model which is not considered by the authors, specifically, that there is a relational/prosocial dimension to the enjoyment of negative emotion in art reception.
There is now an emerging body of work illustrating that negative emotional experiences provide a potent trigger for people to become more relational/prosocial in their orientation toward others. Anthropologists have long noted that many cultures around the world ritualize painful practices, suggesting that they do so to promote social cohesion (Durkheim 1912/1995; Whitehouse 1996). Incidental evidence for this effect of shared negativity is also evident in accounts of soldiers becoming bonded together through the trauma of war (Whitehouse et al. 2014) or increased prosocial behavior in response to catastrophic events (Penner et al. 2005).
More direct evidence is emerging. For instance, Xygalatas et al. (2013) found that participants in the kavadi, practiced during the Thaipusam festival in Mauritius, engaged in more prosocial behavior when they had...