Experience Of Awe Research Articles

A Pilgrimage to See the Holy Father: Or, the Modern Papacy Through the Stereoscope

Abstract: In 1907, the American company Underwood & Underwood published a deck of thirty-six photo cards with an accompanying book entitled A Pilgrimage to See the Holy Father, Through the Stereoscope . Used with a special device called a stereoscope, the cards enabled viewers to immerse themselves in a 3-D experience of the Vatican and to come face to face with Pope Pius X. This article analyzes how the deck was arranged and the text was written to promote an experience of both awe and intimacy. It establishes the set as part of a late-Victorian middle-class world of travel, education, and culture that incorporated both Protestants and Catholics, a world that both made its existence possible and that it helped to create. Finally, it argues that A Pilgrimage to See the Holy Father is less significant in itself than as part of a constellation of mass-produced modern artifacts that collectively created a feeling of personal attachment to individual popes and therefore made possible their central place in the emotional and faith lives of the modern Catholic laity.

Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy in 3-D: Acceptance, Connectedness, and Defensiveness

ABSTRACT As psychiatry weighs a move from a categorical to a dimensionally-based classification system, clinical research and treatment paradigms may shift towards identifying which dimensions of mental health can improve treatment outcomes across a broad range of diagnostic categories. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which is currently in clinical trials for a wide range of conditions from PTSD to tobacco dependency, holds promise for just such a dimensional approach to treatment. Anecdotal reports and qualitative studies have hinted at its potential for decreasing defensiveness and increasing feelings of acceptance and connectedness. In this theoretical paper, I draw upon ideas and research with psychedelics, infant observation, social psychology, and psychoanalysis to explain why psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is especially well-suited for addressing these dimensions of mental health. Because studies already support the use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in one dimensionally-based application – the treatment of existential anxiety in patients with cancer – I begin with a look at psychological models of defensiveness in relation to the fear of death. I then use the models of Winnicott, Stern, Carhart-Harris/Friston and others to discuss the experiences of awe, omnipotence, and creativity within ordinary and psychedelic states, and touch on a fourth dimension of mental health, authenticity. I suggest psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy may be viewed as a transitional space ideally suited for working through experiences of disconnection through the process of illusion-disillusionment, allowing gradual acceptance. I conclude with a summary of how acceptance, connectedness, and defensiveness are related to each other and to one’s sense of self.

Narrative Health: Examining the relationship between the phenomenon of awe and resilience and well-being

Research has shown that experiencing awe can support people’s well-being and enhance their resilience. A secondary phenomenological analysis was conducted of data collected from the Awe Project, a 5-day, online resilience program. Based on the existing literature, which demonstrates that reflecting on positive memories can support individuals’ well-being, a practice during the Awe Project prompted participants first to define awe and then to share a personal awe experience. The results indicated that many of the participants’ awe definitions and narratives were consistent with themes relating to previous awe research while new awe-related themes also emerged. Additionally, many of the awe definitions and stories included elements relating to resilience practices such as cognitive reappraisal, connectedness, gratitude, meaning and purpose in life, mindfulness, and self-efficacy. The results indicated that explaining awe and sharing awe narratives can potentially support people’s well-being, and that being exposed to awe narratives may support this as well.

The influences of daily experiences of awe on stress, somatic health, and well-being: a longitudinal study during COVID-19

In the present work, we used daily diary methodology to investigate the influence of awe on stress, somatic health (e.g., pain symptoms), and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We recruited a sample of community adults (N = 269) and a sample of healthcare professionals (N = 145) in the United States. Across both samples, we found that awe and well-being increased, and stress and somatic health symptoms decreased over the 22-day diary period. In daily level analyses, we found that the more daily awe people experienced, the less stress, less somatic health symptoms, and greater well-being they felt. Daily experiences of awe can benefit individuals during times of acute and chronic stress—such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emotional experience of awe as a facilitator of traumatic narrative integration.

The emotional experience of awe as a facilitator of traumatic narrative integration.

Development of a Japanese version of the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S): A structural topic modeling approach

Background: Awe, a complex emotion, arises in response to perceptually and conceptually vast stimuli that transcend one’s current frames of reference, which is associated with subjective psychological phenomena, such as a sense of self and consciousness. This study aimed to develop a Japanese version of the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S), a widely used questionnaire that robustly measured the state of awe, and simultaneously investigated how the multiple facets of awe related to the narrative representations of awe experiences. Methods: The Japanese AWE-S was created via back-translation and its factor structure and validity was investigated through an online survey in Japan. Results: The results revealed that the Japanese AWE-S consisted of the same six factors as the original (i.e., time, self-loss, connectedness, vastness, physiological, and accommodation) and had sufficient internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and also Japan-specific characteristics. The structured topic modeling generated seven potential topics of the descriptions of awe experiences, which were differently associated with each factor of the Japanese AWE-S. Conclusions: Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of awe and reveal the constructs of awe in Japan through cross-cultural comparisons. Furthermore, this study provides conceptual and methodological implications regarding studies on awe.

The Aweful Music of Kurt Cobain: Nirvana and the Mysterium Tremendum

This article addresses the music and legacy of Kurt Cobain through Rudolf Otto’s elaboration of the mysterium tremendum: a shuddering experience of awe and overpowering dependence evoked by an encounter with the great unseen powers of the universe. The methodology of this article includes comparative and autoethnographic components; I will draw on my own encounters with the sound of Cobain’s music, the memorial to his life in his hometown as marked by pilgrims from around the world, and the significance of this confluence as expressed by fans. To contextualize my personal experience, I was driven to look deeper into Cobain’s life and death. This is an effort to identify the connection between Cobain’s life, Nirvana’s music, and the spiritual dimensions of our experiences that tie us all together as human beings on the face of the earth. The connection between the implications of Otto (the Prussian thinker who endeavours to conceptualize the “holy”), and the punk rock, anti-star from Aberdeen, Washington, is made using the framework of historian of religion Charles Long’s assertion that “religion” may best be understood as “orientation in the ultimate sense” ( Long 1999 ). We will see how the sound of Cobain’s music resonates across time and space, reflecting elements of Otto’s mysterium tremendum as well as a potential source of orientation for others struggling through their experience as human beings in the world.

The online flow and its influence on awe experience: an AI-enabled e-tail service exploration

PurposeThe study applied the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) framework to investigate the influence of flow elements (e.g. perceived control, concentration and cognitive enjoyment) on artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled e-tail services in evoking awe experience in online fashion apparel context.Design/methodology/approachData of 739 active users of online fashion retail shoppers were collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Partial least square-structural equation modeling was used for analysis.FindingsThis study suggested the relevance of AI-enabled services in evoking flow and stimulating the customers' awe experience in online fashion shopping.Practical implicationsThe use of AI could help online fashion retailers to improve the experiential elements by using stimuli that evoke feelings of vastness, novelty and mysticism.Originality/valueThe study offers insights about the relevance and applicability of AI in enhancing the flow elements and awe experience on online fashion apparel shopping in an emerging economy.

Eliciting awe in the spectator: The case of a Dhrupad-based dance performance

This paper describes “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” an immersive Dhrupad-based dance installation designed to elicit feelings of awe in the spectators, in a real-life artistic context. This study used a mixed-methods approach in order to explore spectators’ awe experience (N=45), using specific scales and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results suggested that “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” with its combination of nature motifs and the slow dance-walk associated with the Dhrupad music in the choreography, was able to produce awe-related moments in some spectators and inspire a degree of positive emotions. Our qualitative results viewed awe explicitly as a positive emotion and showed that generally the spectator narratives, involving the whole performance, were based on modified states of consciousness. Three themes emerged: the main theme is “A rich experience of modified states of consciousness” involving the whole performance, and two interconnected sub-themes “Captivated by the slowness of the dancers” associated with the slow movement and “I can still hear the mantra in my head” in rapport with Dhrupad music. This study was carried out as part of the Canadian FRQSC/FCI Project (2019-RC2-260306).

Navigating Critical Zones: Indeterminate and Intimate Geographies

Navigating critical zones is one way to describe our life today. It is also a tribute to the legacy of Peter Weibel (see supplemental material for Jürgen Claus’s artistic tribute), a giant in our field and a force of life in our world. We grieve his death interwoven with gratitude for his life. Peter’s work explored earth as a network of critical zones, experimenting with new modes of coexistence between all forms of life. Navigating critical zones connects digital activism with earthly politics, traversing indeterminate and intimate geographies of personal space and collective conscience.How do humans intersect and connect with nonhuman intelligence? We are increasingly interdependent with nonhuman intelligence that permeates daily life as over 6.6 billion people worldwide, and 97% of Americans, use smartphones [1] today. Artificial intelligence guides GPS maps, navigation, search engines, recommendation algorithms, social media, facial recognition, autocorrect, text editors, e-payments, and more. AI’s pervasive, exponential growth generates countless opportunities for collaboration and reimagination of social systems overdue for an overhaul. It also raises fear, insecurity, anxiety, and unanswered questions. How do we adapt to a future we cannot foresee? Individuals and institutions grapple with how to control, contain, and constrain AI, simultaneously trying to leverage or harness the potential of current creative disruptors like ChatGPT, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and chatSonic. Rather than attempt to outsmart or outpace AI, we need to out-humanize it, by infusing our techno-relationships with our sense of humility, humor, playfulness, curiosity, intuition, empathy, joy, vulnerability, courage, unpredictability, spontaneity, creativity, generosity. This may be a long, incomplete, imperfect list, but it’s a good start. These are core qualities needed for a symbiotic relationship with AI. We don’t need to humanize technology; we need to humanize ourselves in relation to it. Ironically, we may become even more human and more humane by engaging with AI as active partners and co-creators.This issue of Leonardo explores how to navigate the emerging entanglement between human bodies, nonhuman intelligence and lifeforms. Doing so exposes the indeterminacy of AI and the intimacy of personal geographies, social histories, disability and sexuality, the vulnerability of dislocation and abiding connection to place. As a collaborative art-science project, Lovewear embeds haptic feedback into everyday garments for disabled women. TransHuman Saunter, a geo-locative, interactive artwork in the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens, offers four artists’ collaborative digital experiments centered around the Indian banyan tree. Each artist integrates their distinct cultural identity and experience of otherness as women of color in Australia.Compelling stories offer an “empathy gym” to exercise muscles of imagination and compassion for perspectives outside of ourselves. Creative storytelling can unify people across entrenched, yet artificially constructed, social barriers and divisions. Physiologically, when we collectively focus on a cognitive narrative, our heart rates and the rhythm of our breath sync together. We get on the same wavelength, attuned to one another and receptive to empathic cooperation, collaboration, and collective wisdom. This is the power of storytelling, the power of creative captivation, the power of recognizing we are part of something bigger than ourselves. The sense of “being in the presence of something vast beyond our understanding of the world” [2] defines awe, a critical experience for evolving the most humane aspects of human nature [3]. Ultimately, increasing the collective understanding and experience of awe helps us navigate earth’s critical zones and the complex entanglement of diverse intelligences and lifeforms, leading to a symbiotic future in an interspecies world.

Awe promotes moral expansiveness via the small-self.

The experience of awe has been shown to challenge how people think about themselves and the world around them, linking them to something greater than themselves. We investigated whether this emotional experience of awe may also challenge the boundaries of our moral consideration, leading to a generalized expansion in our moral worlds. Across five studies (N = 990), we examined whether awe might promote moral expansiveness; that is, increased moral concern across a broad range of entities (e.g., out-groups, animals, plants, environments). Cross-sectional Studies 1a and 1b, found dispositional awe was related to greater moral expansiveness. Experimental Studies 2 and 3, using video-induced awe, found consistent indirect effects on moral expansiveness, via self-reported awe and the small-self sense of vastness. Experimental Study 4, using Virtual Reality induced awe, found those in the awe condition (vs. control) reported greater moral expansiveness, and this was fully mediated by the small-self sense of vastness. Our findings show awe expands our sense of connectedness to the broader world, and through this, increases the breath of our moral concern.

The Emergence and Evolution of the Study of Sport and Religion

The Emergence and Evolution of the Study of Sport and Religion Joseph L. Price When we begin to map the development and status of the interdisciplinary area of studies “sport and religion,” we find that its boundaries have been shaped by multiple, sometimes competing factors: the use of sporting metaphors to describe spiritual acts and, vice versa, the use of religious rhetoric to describe athletic feats; the embrace of sports as a means of outreach by faith communities; the exercise of sport as a spiritual discipline; theological reflections on the significance of play; ethical reflections on competitive violence and efforts to gain competitive advantages; and the function of sport as a civil religion, to name some of the most prominent cartographical entries. In short, the field has few straight lines and no right angles. As one way to locate the origin and plot the expansion of this interdisciplinary territory, let me intertwine the story of developments in my course “Sport, Play, and Ritual” (introduced in 1984 and offered 25 times before my retirement) with a broad survey of literature in the field, most of which has been issued during the history of my course. When I launched the course and published my first essay on the subject, I did not expect to devote a significant portion of my career to participating in the growth of this creative area of study. My interest in the possible relation between these two passions—religion and sport—had been whetted twenty years earlier when as an early adolescent I had been given a copy of The Goal and the Glory,1 a collection of devotionals by representative all-star athletes, including childhood favorites Bobby Richardson [End Page 17] and Rafer Johnson. At that time, I was unaware of the concept of “muscular Christianity,” an orientation toward faith and sports exemplified in the athletes’ testimonies. A decade later in a respectful, three-part series in Sports Illustrated, Frank Deford dubbed this blend of sports and religion as “Sportianity.”2 However, my enthusiasm for developing an academic course on sports and religion drastically differed from this evangelical ratification of sport. Instead, my interest had been piqued by several works on the theology of play, particularly those by Robert Neale,3 Harvey Cox,4 and Hugo Rahner.5 But the most significant work for stimulating my interest and the course was Michael Novak’s theological celebration, The Joy of Sports.6 Novak interprets Americans’ devotion to sport as one manifestation of civil region that involves a spiritual sense and set of religious rituals. Novak maintains that sports are liturgies without creeds and that they appeal to the human hunger for an experience of transcendence. In that regard he asserts that to experience victory is to taste immortality, and by contrast to experience defeat is to sample the certainty of death. He also identifies other ways that sports function as a religion. They offer a sense of sacred time and sacred space that occurs in a defined space where special rules apply and when governed by a different measure of time; an experience of suspense or mystery about the outcome of a game or performance; an athlete’s possible ascetic orientation in preparation for a quest toward a perfect performance; an experience of awe in response to unbelievable plays and beautiful, physical feats. Because of his penetrating theological analysis and his expansive consideration of [End Page 18] team sports, it is fair to credit Novak with having issued the charter for the academic study of sport as religion.7 During the development of my course, I teamed with a colleague whose expertise was in the sociology of sports. While we searched for resources to recommend to students, we were dismayed to learn that The Joy of Sports was out of print, but we were able to compile a bibliography of various works about the ancient Olympic games that were performed in honor of and for the entertainment of the gods, Native American rites like that of Black Elk’s account of Tapa Wanka Yap (throwing the ball), essays on Sumo wrestling that explained the sacred significance of salt rituals and the Dohyo, and various analyses of martial arts...

It's awe-fully unfamiliar: The effect of familiarity on awe within a virtual reality setting.

Awe-inducing scenes are purported to involve vastness and a need for accommodation. Familiarity with a stimulus should reduce the need for accommodation, thereby reducing the intensity of awe experienced. The present study tested the effect of familiarity to a natural awe-inducing scene on the experience of awe. Forty undergraduate participants (N = 40) participated in a virtual reality experiment. Using a within-subjects design, participants viewed (in counterbalanced order) an awe-inducing nature scene that was either familiar or unfamiliar. The dependent measure was self-reported awe. Results confirmed that participants experienced diminished awe while viewing a familiar awe-inducing scene compared to viewing an unfamiliar awe-inducing scene.

Examining the role of consumer motivations to use voice assistants for fashion shopping: The mediating role of awe experience and eWOM

Artificial intelligence-enabled voice assistant services have received notable scholarly attention. Fashion retailers offer AI-based voice assistants to facilitate online shoppers. However, the consumer motivations to use digital voice assistants and their effect on the purchase intentions of online fashion shoppers are unexplored. To bridge this literature gap, this study presents a unique theoretical model grounded in the consumer innovativeness concept, broaden-and-built theory, and stimulus-organism-response model to explore the effect of motivated consumer innovativeness to use digital voice assistants on purchase intention and awe experience of online shoppers. The study used data collected from 538 users of digital voice assistants for online shopping of fashion products. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that the functional, hedonic, social, and cognitive motivated consumer innovativeness for using voice assistants affects purchase intention and awe experience. Further, the awe experience mediates the relationship between motivated consumer innovativeness and purchase intention; and electronic word-of-mouth mediates the relationship between awe experience and purchase intention. The study theoretically contributes to the extant literature on consumer innovativeness, AI-based voice assistants, and fashion shopping. The findings offer insights to fashion retailers for improved use of voice assistants by online shoppers.

Birthing as an experience of awe: Birthing consciousness and its long-term positive effects.

Birthing as an experience of awe: Birthing consciousness and its long-term positive effects.

Awe arises in reaction to exceeded rather than disconfirmed expectancies.

Awe is a fascinating emotion, associated with positive consequences such as greater prosociality, generosity, and epistemic openness. Unfortunately, in spite of the weighty consequences of awe, the exact way in which it arises, and what it entails, is still a puzzle. Particularly puzzling is the question of whether awe is the result of expectancy violation. While awe is thought to arise in reaction to expectancy-violating objects or events, classical expectancy violations (e.g., a red queen of spades playing card) do not tend to cause awe. To shed light on this problem, we distinguished two types of expectancy violations-those that disconfirm and those that exceed one's expectancies-and we investigated whether awe is more likely to arise in reaction to one versus the other. We also looked at what appraisals constitute and are most important to the awe experience and how they structurally interact. To do this, we utilized network analysis and mapped out the network structure of appraisals linked to awe and to expectancy violations. Across two experimental studies (N = 823), we demonstrated that awe arises in reaction to exceeded (rather than disconfirmed) expectancies and that appraisals linked to exceeded expectancies (vastness and uniqueness) are central to awe, while appraisals linked to disconfirmed expectancies (uncertainty and inconsistency) are peripheral to the awe experience. Taken together, our investigation sheds new light on psychologists' understanding of expectancy violations and reveals when and how awe arises and what it entails. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Buffering Effect of Awe on Negative Emotions in Self-Threatening Situations.

Negative emotions arising from self-threat are ubiquitous and harmful. We propose that the experience of awe awakens the small-self, which in turn alleviates these negative emotions. We examine our theoretical hypotheses in four studies employing various self-threatening situations, using distinct awe manipulations and involving participants from different countries. The participants experiencing awe reported lower levels of negative emotions arising from self-threat compared with those in the neutral (Study 1) and happiness conditions (Study 2). Moreover, we verified that the small-self mediates the alleviating effect of awe on negative emotions through measuring (Study 3) and manipulating the small-self (Study 4). Beyond a set of practical implications for promoting mental health and well-being, our research also provides novel insights into awe, self-appraisal, and self-threat.

Planet earth calling: unveiling the brain's response to awe and driving eco-friendly consumption.

Eco-friendly consumption is important for solving climate crisis and moving humanity toward a better future. However, few consumers are willing to pay premiums for eco-friendly products. We investigated the psychological and neural factors that can increase eco-friendly consumption. We propose an experience of awe, in which the individual self is temporarily attenuated as the importance of beings other than oneself increases. Behavioral (Study 1) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Study 2) experiments were conducted to explore the awe mechanisms through which climate crisis messages lead to eco-friendly consumption. In Study 1, we found participants felt awe when exposed to climate crisis messages, and their choice of eco-friendly consumption increased. In Study 2, we found that when individuals were exposed to messages depicting the climate crisis (as opposed to a control stimulus), their brains exhibited a lower level of activation in the self-awareness processing and a higher level of activation in external attention processing areas. These results suggest that the awe experience plays an important role in promoting eco-friendly consumption. Marketing must evolve from satisfying basic individual needs to a high level for the well-being of humanity, the planet, and the biosphere. This study sheds light on our understanding of human perceptions of the climate crisis and suggests an effective communication strategy to increase individuals' eco-friendly actions.

How Awe Shaped Us: An Evolutionary Perspective

Research shows the experience of awe is associated with a variety of benefits ranging from increased well-being and prosocial behavior to enhanced cognition. The adaptive purpose of awe, however, is elusive. In this article, we aim to show that the current framework used to conceptualize awe points towards higher-order cognition as the key adaptive function. This goes against past evolutionary positions that posit social benefits or unidimensional behavioral adaptations. In the second half of the article, we highlight a distinct cognitive advantage of awe. The literature connecting awe and cognition is surveyed and used to develop a view that situates awe as a critical component in the cognitive success of the human species.

Awe experience triggered by fighting against COVID-19 promotes prosociality through increased feeling of connectedness and empathy

ABSTRACT The promoter of prosocial behavior in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic needs to be examined. Here, we examined the effect of experienced awe through cross-sectional (Study 1), a 3-wave longitudinal (Study 2) and experimental (Study 3–4) approaches. Study 1 showed that dispositional awe positively predicted one’s prosocial behavior in the pandemic (N = 1281). Study 2 (N = 332) observed that experienced awe predicted higher prosociality, and this relationship was serially mediated by connectedness and empathy. Study 3 (N = 153) and 4 (N = 156) confirmed that elicited awe, compared to that of amusement and neutrality, promoted multiple types of prosociality (Study 3) and willingness of blood donation (Study 4) via serial mediation of connectedness and empathy. These findings suggest that the experience of awe increases one’s connectedness to the world, which in turn enhances empathic concern and prosociality in pandemic fighting.