The Power of Vicarious Joy in Challenging Times

In a time marked by change and uncertainty, creating space for joy can feel daunting, impossible, and even selfish for some, but joy isn’t a luxury. It’s a fundamental part of the shared human condition and can even help us withstand difficult times.

Cultivating joy in our everyday life can serve as a rooting mechanism for individuals to maintain a sense of humanity and connection amid personal and collective distress. Joy is a radical act of resistance; like food, it serves as nourishment for our spirits, minds, and bodies that allows us to honor our full humanity and strengthens our capacity to keep going.

What Vicarious Joy Is and Why It Matters

Joy that is experienced or inspired by witnessing joy in others (rather than coming from our own lives) is called vicarious joy. Vicarious joy can be tapped into through various mechanisms, including social media, storytelling, and witnessing. For example, a person can come across a delicious-looking meal, spontaneously responding with a small “mmmm,” or experience a moment of warmth when encountering a friend’s wedding photo, or feel a spark of joy when their best friend shares excitement about a great first date. These emotional resonances illustrate how joy can be cultivated, shared, and accessed indirectly yet still provide emotional and mental relief, leading to positive daily outcomes, even in moments of personal difficulty when it is most needed.

Existing research on vicarious emotional responses has primarily centered on vicarious trauma/vicarious traumatization, compassion fatigue, and vicarious resilience. Vicarious joy can serve as a disruption and vital tool for collective resilience, motivation, care, and psychological survival.

In times of collective and widespreaduncertainty, grief, and hardships, vicarious joy serves as a mechanism of emotional grounding and persistence. Recognizing vicarious joy as a valuable emotional resource necessitates a more human-centered and compassionate approach to navigating moments of collective strain. Below, we present testimonials from four higher ed professionals on how vicarious joy has impacted their lives.

What Vicarious Joy Looks Like in Practice

Individuals can experience vicarious joy in a multitude of settings, both personal and professional. Here, we provide real examples from a wide breadth of situations in the workplace.

Bianca Tonantzin Zamora, Workplace Inclusion Consultant and Facilitator, Independent Consultant: “As a workshop facilitator working at the intersections of inclusive excellence, workplace belonging, and systemic inequities, I intentionally design exercises that cultivate collective experiences of joy through radical affirmation prompts. For example, during a three-day leadership institute I facilitated, I invited participants to share photos that represented joy in their lives. Participants presented images of loved ones, travel, and passions, which in turn, filled the room with laughter, connection, and what participants described as “an abundance of collective joy.” As each person lovingly shared their story of joy, it also nourished everyone present. This facilitation occurred amid announcements of institutional layoffs and provided moments for care and reprieve. This is vicarious joy in action. I feel deeply honored each time a person reflects they are leaving more connected and joyous, which is desperately needed in this tense socio-political moment.”

Shaila Kotadia, PhD, Director of Employee Experience and Community Impact, Stanford School of Medicine: As an HR professional, I have the opportunity to support staff as they navigate workplace challenges. This often means listening and believing their stories and helping them make informed decisions on how to address situations. On numerous occasions, the person finds the courage to pursue a restorative process that allows them to advocate for themselves. The result is a much-improved work environment. When they come back to share how their experience has positively improved, it fills me with a sense of joy and pride. What they did is not easy, and their newly found growth is infectious. It reminds me of the purpose and meaning in professions structured around service.

Justin Crest, PhD, Associate Director of Team Science, Stanford School of Medicine: “As someone who came from the scientific research world, I know full well the joy (and pain) that scientific discovery brings to the researcher. Stepping away from the bench, I now work with researchers in their early- to late-career stages, where I provide advice, guidance, and a writing partnership to acquire grants that will fund innovative ideas. That is where I leave them, as they go on to make their exciting discoveries without me. However, I find this to be the part I enjoy most. Researchers are happy to have received their grant; there is hope that everything they proposed will work out as expected, and we can part ways full of optimism for their future, as I begin the process again with a new team.”

Gisell Quihuis, PhD, Director of Faculty Development and Engagement, Stanford School of Medicine: “As an educational psychologist with expertise in motivation and achievement, I love scaffolding opportunities for individuals to thrive in academic settings. Whether these opportunities involve supporting individuals on a personal level or challenging institutional structures that hinder progress, I find true joy in seeing people advance and reach their goals, especially when their success defies the social and institutional disadvantages that are often at play. Their progress and victories become my own. As I celebrate their accomplishments, I am energized to continue using my skills to invest in others so that together we can build a better future through intentional educational opportunities for as many people as possible.”

Practice, Experience, and Spread Vicarious Joy

In an increasingly despondent world, joy keeps us moving forward and grounded, allows us to move beyond survival, and serves as a form of resistance. Oftentimes, we may not be able to easily envision joy in our daily lives due to extenuating circumstances. Joy can be part of an intentional and collective practice. Our relationships provide an opportunity to tap into emotional states of joy — our family, children, elders, friends, and colleagues all hold a special key. Through sharing our stories and spending time together, we can experience vicarious joy. In times of hyper-individualization and high levels of distress, we need joy and community more than ever to sustain collective hope and resistance.

We encourage you to practice, experience, and spread vicarious joy. Name it when it happens. Sit in the moment. Share the joy others bring into your life. Nourishing joy and affirming our humanity are not small acts. They are conditions for our collective survival.