He has received numerous national prizes and grants for his research, teaching, and writing, and is a member of the american Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wired magazine recently rated his podcasts from his course Emotion as one of the five best educational downloads, and the Utne Reader selected Keltner for one of its 50 2008 visionaries.

[13][14][15] With collaborators Paul Piff and Michael Kraus, Keltner has offered a theoretical account of how social class shapes human thought, feeling, and action.

[16] In empirical demonstrations of this work, Keltner has shown that people from more privileged class backgrounds are more likely to drive through pedestrian crosswalks and cheat on tests to win a prize, feel less compassion than those who suffer, and explain their success in terms of their own superior traits.

[17] Keltner has been a central voice in making the case that emotions serve important social functions, enabling us to fold into relationships vital to survival, like friendships, groups, romantic partnerships, and parent-child attachments.

[18]  Guided by this framework, Keltner has done pioneering work on emotions like embarrassment, shame, love, compassion, amusement, and gratitude.

[22] In 2003, Keltner and collaborator Jonathan Haidt authored a paper charting what awe is and how it influences our moral, spiritual and aesthetic lives.

In a recent paper with collaborator Maria Monroy, Keltner has made the case that experiences of awe account for why things like music, spirituality, and psychedelics benefit health and well-being.