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Mean differences in awe emotion, perceived self-size, A sense of connecting with community and society, attitude toward norm violation across conditions.
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Awe is an emotional response to vast stimuli needing for accommodation. Although several studies have revealed that awe led to more ethical attitudes toward one’s own behavior and to generosity toward people in general, it is unclear whether and how the two types of awe—positive and threatened—influence one’s attitude toward others’ social norm vio...
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Context 1
... < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.61; "ifu": F(1,23) = 68.42, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.75] (see Table 1). Participants in threatened awe conditions experienced stronger feelings of both of "ifu" and "ike" in the posttest (i.e., after watching threatened awe clips) ("ifu": M = 5.54, SD = 1.25; "ike": M = 3.75, SD = 2.17) than in the pretest ("ifu": M = 1.17, ...Context 2
... < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.93; "ike": F(1,23) = 13.80, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.38] (see Table 1). Participants in threatened awe conditions experienced stronger feelings of "ifu" than did participants in positive awe conditions in the posttest minus pretest, F(1,46) = 12.51, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.21. ...Citations
... The third aspect concerns physiological indicators of awe that can be assessed by measuring goosebumps with a camera (Maruskin et al., 2012;McPhetres & Shtulman, 2021), heart-rate variability, respiration rate, and skin conductance with sensors (Chirico et al., 2017;Shiota et al., 2011), or measures of brain activity on the scalp (Chirico et al., 2020;Hu et al., 2017;Reinerman-Jones et al., 2013;Takano & Nomura, 2022) as well as neural activity for ego-dissolution (Lebedev et al., 2015). Finally, a fourth perspective on experimental measures of awe concerns assessments of the small-self within pictorial methods that make use of representations of the human body (Van Elk et al., 2016), a range of circles (Colantonio & Bonawitz, 2018;Sawada & Nomura, 2020), an open field where participants could draw themselves (Bai et al., 2017), or size within photograph selfies (Sturm et al., 2020). ...
... Despite these limitations, the present study enhances our understanding of the relationship between transformative experiences and self-representation in children's drawings. Where the focus of pictorial measures on awe in previous research was mainly on self-size (Bai et al., 2017;Colantonio & Bonawitz, 2018;Van Elk et al., 2016;Sawada & Nomura, 2020;Sturm et al., 2020), our results suggest that self-size might not be a good indicator for this emotion in younger participants. Other elements, such as drawing complexity, should be considered when measuring transformative experiences. ...
Transformative experiences in an individual’s life have a lasting impact on identity, belief system, and values. At the core of these experiences is the complex emotion of awe that promotes learning, making it worthwhile to study from an educational point of view. Drawing studies may provide a useful measure of awe in children—one that is more intuitive and attractive than questionnaires alone. Previous studies conducted with adults indicated that the diminished self, associated with transformative experiences, manifests in an actual decrease in size for figures representing the self in drawings. In the current study, self-representation was investigated in drawings of 10- to 12-year-old primary school children within the context of an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience that elicits the overview effect, known to lead to an intense apperception of awe. We did not replicate the adult findings regarding self-size in this younger age group. However, details and complexity in children’s drawings appeared to be impacted by the awe-elicitation procedure in VR. These elements subsequently correlated to learning gains instead of the overview effect, indicating that this measure could be linked to cognitive ability. The findings of the current study contribute to a better understanding of how drawings reflect self-transcendental experiences; however, they also reveal that in younger age groups, they are not necessarily reflected in decreased self-size.
... It is assumed that the experience of awe could lead to a willingness to commit religious action. This is a consistent finding in various research attesting to the induced experience of awe through the view of nature toward individuals' willingness to commit various acts of prosocial behavior such as sharing, donating, and helping others in need (Guan et al. 2019;Lin et al. 2020;Piff et al. 2015), making ethical decisions (Tyson et al. 2022), tolerating mistakes by others (Sawada and Nomura 2020), migrating to a spiritual destination (Van Cappellen and Saroglou 2012) or sacrificing oneself for the sake of religion or fellow believers (Naclerio and Van Cappellen 2022). ...
... The audience may become immersed in the narrative which could in turn ignite deep emotional and motivational changes to commit acts of extremism. Although the behavioral effect of awe is not examined in our study, it has been consistently recorded in other research exploring awe through viewing videos of nature or remembrance of God (Guan et al. 2019;Lin et al. 2020;Naclerio and Van Cappellen 2022;Piff et al. 2015;Sawada and Nomura 2020;Tyson et al. 2022;Van Cappellen and Saroglou 2012). We hope that our research findings could supplement the current knowledge of factors contributing to radicalization, such as exposure to news or other materials related to extremism that may cause a change in mindset (e.g., Rashid and Mat Isa 2022). ...
... One reason why the study of awe is controversial is that it can be elicited by a wide range of conditions, including interactions that are terrifying, thrilling, joyful, confusing, or elucidating. To address these variations, researchers increasingly explore how awe emerges from both positive conditions-such as pleasure or beauty, as well as negative-including threat or terror Guan et al., 2019;Piff et al., 2015;Sawada & Nomura, 2020) with at least one study demonstrating that such variations result in recognizable variations in neural pathways (Takano & Nomura, 2022). ...
... This self-transcendence promotes feelings of loyalty and self-sacrifice oriented toward the group the individual felt most connected with during and after the awe-inducing event Gordon et al., 2017;Shiota et al., 2007;Stellar et al., 2017). Notably, while cooperation and connection are outcomes of experiencing awe, for those that experience positive-awe situations, these connections are often generalized, meaning they include a wide range of people, often including strangers, while negative-awe situations can result in connections being made to specific people, often those that underwent the same negative-awe experience (Guan et al., 2019;Sawada & Nomura, 2020). Research demonstrates that negative and positiveawe experiences also result in different levels of acceptance of people different than oneself as studies show that positive experiences result in a higher toleration toward "deviant" behavior while negative experiences did not result in a similar toleration (Sawada & Nomura, 2020). ...
... Notably, while cooperation and connection are outcomes of experiencing awe, for those that experience positive-awe situations, these connections are often generalized, meaning they include a wide range of people, often including strangers, while negative-awe situations can result in connections being made to specific people, often those that underwent the same negative-awe experience (Guan et al., 2019;Sawada & Nomura, 2020). Research demonstrates that negative and positiveawe experiences also result in different levels of acceptance of people different than oneself as studies show that positive experiences result in a higher toleration toward "deviant" behavior while negative experiences did not result in a similar toleration (Sawada & Nomura, 2020). ...
Archaeologists are increasingly interested in studying the role emotions have played in past human decision making. This paper demonstrates how awe is under-appreciated within archaeology despite it being uniquely available to archaeological research given its connection to monumental architecture and communal rituals. Archaeological engagement with awe is particularly important as psychological research has demonstrated that it is a prosocial emotion that leads to the creation of more extensive and stronger social bonds between individuals. A novel interpretation of Poverty Point (USA) is provided to illustrate the importance of studying awe, as this massive earthwork site was built more than 3000 years ago through large-scale gatherings. Reconsidered as a place of awe, Poverty Point is recast as an emotional locale where larger social and cultural identities and relationships were formed.
... While positive awe increases nature connectedness and further well-being, while threatening awe makes people feel more powerless, which added to increased connectedness, led to no effect on well-being. Sawada and Nomura (2020) showed that both positive and negative awe made people perceive themselves as having a small size. While the openness to experience and conscientiousness (as personality trats), and the sense of connection with community and society remained the same after watching a 2-minutes films with nature inspiring awe (positive or negative), the persons experiencing positive awe reported a higher tolerance for the strong norm violations, but not for weak and appropriate violations of norms, while negative awe did not have a significant effect of all. ...
Spending time in nature or simply watching a video or photos from nature seems to improve self-centeredness, becoming aware of personal needs and means to satisfy them. It also has a restoring effect on cognitive functions and the human brain. Fewer studies were conducted on how spending time in nature affects the sense of belonging and the appreciation of other people. The article presents the results of an experiment involving first year Clinical Psychology students participating in a Health Psychology and Psychosomatics course. The participants in the experimental group watched a film presenting the life of several families of animals and birds in the wilderness. Afterwards, they completed two measures: one for the sense of belongingness and the other with awe for the significant people in their life. The control group only completed the questionnaires as part of regular activities. The results show that, after watching the film from wilderness, the feelings of timelessness, the physiological aspects and greatness of awe towards a significant other were significantly affected, while feelings of Self, connectedness, feeling accepted/included or rejected/excluded showed no significant differences for the two groups.
... In terms of valence, some have argued that awe is predominantly positive (Campos et al., 2013;Griskevicius et al., 2010), while others have shown that a threat-based variant of awe-accounting for around 20% of awe experiences-is evaluated as negative (e.g., a volcano can be awe-inspiring but also threatening; Chirico et al., 2016;Gordon et al., 2017;Sawada & Nomura, 2020;Takano & Nomura, 2022). Awe could thus be both positive and negative depending on the type of event that is recalled, but on average it is likely to be relatively positive as positive awe is more common than threat-based awe. ...
Epistemic emotions are hardly ever studied together, making it difficult to predict what features are shared versus unique to each emotion. To address this, we conducted two autobiographical recall experiments. We compared awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom in terms of elicitors, subjective experience components, and action tendencies. Ratings were analyzed using network analyses, to describe the central features for the whole group of epistemic emotions. In addition, ratings were compared per emotion, to identify key features for each individual emotion. Results showed that valence, arousal, coping potential, and avoidance are central features of all epistemic emotions. Awe, surprise, and interest were relatively positive emotions, which together with curiosity, were associated with arousal, high coping potential, and approach. Confusion and boredom were relatively negative emotions, which were associated with low arousal, low coping potential, and avoidance. Further analyses revealed unique features of (groups of) emotions. For example, awe was associated with exceeded expectancies, while surprise was associated with both exceeded and disconfirmed expectancies. Moreover, curiosity and confusion were associated with having (too) little information, while awe and interest were associated with having sufficient information. All emotions except boredom were associated with exploration, but this was particularly high for curiosity and interest.
... Consumers form opinions regarding how acceptable (or unacceptable) it is to violate different social norms based on their perceptions of what is "appropriate" conduct (Cialdini, 2007). Importantly, however, these perceptions are malleable (Luo et al., 2020;Sawada & Nomura, 2020). We propose that creative thinking increases an individual's acceptance of social norm violations because it helps them more naturally envision solutions that break from the norm (Burroughs et al., 2008), enabling them to consider different ways in which things that seem unacceptable can be acceptable. ...
Consumer embarrassment occurs frequently and can negatively impact both consumers and marketers. The current work demonstrates that encouraging consumers to engage in creative thinking—whether generating new ideas (e.g., crowdsourcing) or through exposure to creativity-related words—is one way for marketers to address the challenges posed by consumer embarrassment. Three studies demonstrate that prompting creative thinking makes consumers feel less embarrassed in subsequent consumer contexts. Specifically, the findings suggest that when consumers are prompted to think creatively, they assess behaviors that violate social norms as more socially acceptable, lowering feelings of embarrassment across a variety of consumption contexts. This research contributes to our understanding of the many benefits of engaging consumers in creative thinking and the growing stream of work exploring tactics companies can employ to help mitigate consumer embarrassment. This research also offers practical implications for both marketers and consumers.
... Awe is an emotional response to perceptually and conceptually vast stimuli that transcend one's current frames of reference (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). It has been studied in various fields, such as psychology, economics, neuroscience, immunology, and public health (Guan et al., 2018;Ibanez et al., 2017;Monroy & Keltner, 2022;Piff et al., 2015;Sawada & Nomura, 2020;Stellar et al., 2015;Sun et al., 2021;Takano & Nomura, 2022b;van Elk et al., 2019). Previous studies have shown that awe is associated with subjective psychological phenomena, such as a sense of self and consciousness, which highlights the need for a standardized questionnaire to assess the various dimensions of awe experiences (Bai et al., 2017;Rudd et al., 2012;Takano & Nomura, 2021). ...
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.
... Importantly, threat is one of the features that characterize awe experiences [3]. Previous studies have demonstrated how the threat-awe that arises in response to threatening awe stimuli (e.g., tornadoes, wrathful gods) is associated with different psychological, physiological, and neural responses than positive forms of awe, which arise during aesthetic experiences (e.g., beautiful nature, spiritual phenomena, and the virtue of a charismatic leader) [6,8,13]. For instance, threat-awe is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being and activation of the sympathetic nervous system [6]. ...
... Consistent with this, previous empirical research in Japan revealed that the ratings of ifu were higher in the threat-awe condition, while those of ikei were higher in the positive awe condition [8]. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that both the experiences of positive awe and threat-awe can elicit feelings of awe; however, the specific contexts in which these experiences occur may differ [6,8,13]. Based on these observations, threat-awe experiences would be more frequently labeled as ifu than as ikei, thereby being linked to specific semantic networks between these awe-related words and others (e.g., those that have social meanings such as family). ...
Threat-awe, a negatively valenced variant of awe, is thought to strengthen social ties among community members. However, few empirical studies have examined the social functions of threat-awe. This study investigated whether threat-awe is linked to interdependent worldviews through feelings of powerlessness in comparison with positive awe. After remembering and describing their experiences of positive-or threat-awe, 486 Japanese participants reported on items regarding a small self, a sense of powerlessness, and interdependent worldviews. The results demonstrated that threat-awe encouraged interdependent worldviews via an increased sense of powerlessness, rather than the small self, compared to the positive awe condition. From textual perspectives, the semantic networks between awe-related and other words differed from the descriptions of threat-awe and positive awe experiences. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the emotions of awe as well as new insights into human cooperation in the context of disasters.
... They found that those watching the disability sport advertising expressed much selftranscendent emotion (e.g., awe) toward the disabled athletes, which contributed to change their perception and attitude and lead to the destigmatization toward disability. Studies also found that those experiencing positive awe were more open and tolerant of others' norm violations (16,17). These findings provide support for the hypothesis that awe can decrease AIDSrelated stigma. ...
Stigma toward people with HIV or AIDS produces significant harms to their life and also hinders the prevention of AIDS. In the present study, we tested whether awe can weaken AIDS-related stigma and the mediating role of connectedness and empathy between them through a cross-sectional study (Study 1, N = 372) and two experimental studies (Study 2a and 2b, N = 110 and N = 180, respectively). Results showed that awe reduced AIDS-related stigma (Study 2a and 2b), via the serial mediation of connectedness and empathy (Study 1 and 2b). These findings suggest that the experience of awe increases one’s connectedness to the world, which then enhances empathy and decreases AIDS-related stigma. This study expands our understanding of the relationship between awe and stigma, providing empirical basis for decreasing social prejudice to others.
... This study deals with two mixed emotions, awe and nostalgia, which are highly related to haiku and were also mentioned by Menninghaus et al. (2017). Awe involves the perception of vastness and the updating of cognitive schemas (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), encompassing both positive awe (e.g., at the sight of a beautiful scenery or piece of art) and threat awe (e.g., at the sight of a tsunami or storm) (Sawada & Nomura, 2020). Similarly, nostalgia is a complex emotion that is a mixture of longing for the past and sadness that the past can no longer be experienced; it is a mixed emotion that has bittersweet characteristics with a mixture of positive 8 AMBIGUITY AND BEAUTY OF HAIKU POETRY and negative emotions (Braniecka et al., 2014). ...
In this study, ambiguity was classified into cognitive and emotional ambiguity, and their effects on the aesthetic evaluation of haiku were examined for native Japanese and German speakers. Since haiku is the shortest form of poetry in the world, it usually contains ambiguity and makes cultural comparison easier. Overall, 450 Japanese and 373 German speakers participated in an online experiment involving the evaluation of haiku poetry. They were also asked to fill out questionnaires based on personality traits. Then, participants were asked to rate a haiku based on 10 characteristics, including the degree to which they perceived beauty, cognitive ambiguity, awe, and nostalgia. Results showed that as cognitive ambiguity increased, the aesthetic evaluation of haiku decreased. This tendency was greater among German than among Japanese speakers; this can be explained by the differences in high- and low-context societies. Regarding emotional ambiguity, this study focused on the higher-order emotions of awe and nostalgia, which encompass both positive and negative emotions. It was found that the greater the participants felt these emotions, the higher was their aesthetic evaluation of haiku. This tendency was greater among German than Japanese speakers; this may be because Westerners tend to perceive awe and nostalgia highly positively. Ambiguity, also known as “the beauty of silence” is one of the characteristics of haiku and was found to be an important factor in aesthetic evaluation; however, this relationship was also influenced by cultural differences.
