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THE BASICS

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Dacher Keltner

Founder of the Greater Good Science Center

Dacher Keltner is arguably one of the most well-known and quoted scientists studying awe today. His studies have proposed a framework that has guided much of the research done in the last few years

“Awe might be our brain’s way of dealing with the horror of uncertainty by making it fun.”

-Beau Lotto    

WHAT IS AWE?

Dictionary Definition: “An emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime.”   (Merriam-Webster) 

According to Keltner

  • Two essential factors: perceived vastness and a need for accommodation

    • Perceived vastness:​ anything that is experienced as being much larger than the self, or the self’s ordinary level of experience

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“Awe is triggered by an unexpected event, like surprise, and involves the salience of a gap in knowledge and a desire to acquire more information, like curiosity and wonder, but it also entails an inability to assimilate information into existing mental structures and a resulting need for accommodation" (Valdesolo, et al., 2017). What differentiates awe from curiosity and wonder, however, is the fact that when awe is triggered "in the presence of something that cannot be understood in terms of one’s current theories of the world (i.e., [something that is] perceptually vast), it involves a strong motivation to adjust those theories in order to make sense of the novel stimulus (i.e., a need for accommodation)" (Allen)

"Flavors" of awe: Keltner's proposed, theoretical variations of awe experiences 

  • Threat-based: accompanied by fear (ex: Hitler or a hurricane)

  • Beauty-based: flavored with “aesthetic pleasure” (ex: elicited by a person, nature, art)

  • Ability-based: co-occurs with admiration of a person’s “exceptional ability, talent, and skill” (ex: talented musician or athlete)

  • Virtue-based: what one feels when in the presence of someone displaying virtue and strength of character – likely accompanied by feelings of elevation

       (ex: reading about the lives of saints)

  • Supernatural causality-based: what one might experience if they saw an angel, a ghost, or a floating object – will be tinted with an “element of the uncanny,” which can be terrifying or glorious depending on the source

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS

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  • “Although the modern view of awe in Western society is overwhelmingly positive, awe is a complex emotion, one that can be intensely pleasurable or imbued with dread, depending on the context. Awe can be felt in response to nature’s capacity for destruction (e.g., thunderstorms), a leader’s coercive charisma (e.g., Adolf Hitler), or our perception of an angry and punitive God. More awful experiences of awe are tinged with fear and threat and may not have the same benefits as awesome experiences of wonder or amazement.” (Greater Good Magazine)

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  • There is a pilot study to see whether art-induced awe could facilitate toleration during conflict since awe has been found to produce more feelings of togetherness and open-mindedness (Beau Lotto's TED Talk)

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HOW IS AWE EXPRESSED?

  • Goosebumps: really map to awe (both positive and fear-based) and not other positive emotions 

    • Particularly prevalent in listening to music, especially female vocalists 

    • Note: This is particularly interesting since one study on the next page focuses on Cirque du Soleil and their famously awe-inspiring performances. Cirque performances are heavily grounded in music, using timing to build suspense, tempo and instrumentation to build excitement, and almost always female vocals in the particularly awe-inspiring acts

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  • Cytokine release and inflammation response

    • In non-human species, this is associated with submissive behaviors; in humans, it is tied into shame and social rejection​

    • Awe is the only positive emotion that predicts reductions of cytokine response, which would explain the prevalent sense of social connectedness

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  • "Vocal bursts"

    • Short vocalizations were used by multiple people in one study​ in an attempt to convey awe

      • "A study from 10 globalized cultures and a remote village in Bhutan showed that "a vocal burst similar to 'wow' could be universally recognized as being related to an experience of awe "​​ (Allen)

    • ​Another study: A majority of participants displayed some combination of an open, slightly drop-jawed mouth, widened eyes, and raised inner eyebrows, and more than a quarter slightly jutted their head out or inhaled​​

      • "The researchers speculate that the forward head jutting and widened eyes may help people take in and process new information—part of the process of cognitive accommodation—whereas inhalation and a dropped jaw may reduce physiological arousal, which can interfere with complex cognitive processing."

    • Core nonverbal expression of awe highly conserved and present across five cultures in a study focusing on participants from China, India, Japan, Korea, and the U.S.

      • Expressions also contained cultural "accents"​

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  • Internal expressions:

    • People feel small but connected to the world

    • When experiencing awe, people have "less need for cognitive control. They're more comfortable with uncertainty, without having closure. Their appetite for risk increases. They actually seek risk, and they are better able at taking it.” (Grady)​​

WHAT ELSE INFLUENCES AWE?

  • Sources of awe

    • Natural wonders

    • Architectural achievements

    • Music and individual musicians

    • Art

    • Highly-skilled athletes

    • Synchronicity (ex: music syncing perfectly with a performance)

    • Patterns

    • The grandiose as well as the ordinary

    • Cultural differences found in a study:

      • Personal accomplishments were more frequent awe elicitors among people in the United States (a more individualistic culture) than among people from China (a more collectivist culture), whereas feeling in awe of another person was more commonly reported by people from China than by people from the United States. 

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  • The Person

    • Extraverted people may have a greater tendency to experience awe, as may people who are more open to new experiences 

    • People who are less comfortable with ambiguity appear to be less likely to experience awe

    • One study found evidence that people from lower social classes report experiencing awe more frequently than people from higher classes 

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  • In China, awe translates to fearful respect

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