Awe, daily stress, and elevated life satisfaction.

Abstract

It is widely assumed that experiences of awe transform the meaning of daily stresses. Across six studies we tested whether and how the experience of awe is associated with reduced daily stress levels in the moment and, in so doing, leads to elevated life satisfaction. We first documented that individuals who tend to experience greater awe on a daily basis (Study 1) or who report higher levels of trait-like awe (Study 2) report lower levels of daily stress, even after controlling for other positive emotions. In follow-up experiments, after primed with awe (compared with amusement, joy, and pride), individuals reported lower levels of daily stress (Studies 3 and 5) and exhibited lower levels of sympathetic autonomic arousal when talking about their daily stresses (Study 4). Finally, in a naturalistic study, participants who took in an awe-inspiring view at the top of a 200foot tower reported reduced levels of daily stress and central everyday concerns (Study 6). Mediation analyses revealed that (a) the association between awe and reduced daily stress can be explained by an appraisal of vastness vis-à-vis the self and (b) that the relationship between awe

Developing and validating the Japanese version of the situational Awe cale (SAS-J)

“…The results showed that positive awe increased the feeling of connectedness, which was consistent with much previous research (Bai et al, 2017;Krenzer et al, 2020;Nelson-Coffey et al, 2019;Shiota et al, 2007;Stellar et al, 2017;van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012;Yaden et al, 2019). Previous research has also suggested that positive awe experience enhanced well-being through various psychological mechanisms (Anderson et al, 2018;Bai et al, 2021;Krause & Hayward, 2015;Rudd et al, 2012;Sturm et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2019). According to a previous study (Krause & Hayward, 2015), our results showed that a sense of connection during positive awe experiences was positively correlated .18, .48] [.07, .39] [-.12, .21] [.24, .52] [.25, .53] [.29, .56] [.18, .48] [-.07, .26] [.27, .55] [.32, .58] [.22, .50] [.02, .34] [-.00, .32] [.23, .51] [.23, .52 with well-being, which suggested that the feelings of connection to someone/thing (i.e., others and oneness) was associated with the effects of awe on well-being.…”

“…Consistent with research suggesting that small self and dispositional awe are positively associated not only each other (Piff et al, 2015), but also with the feeling of connectedness and self-reported psychophysiological responses (Yaden et al 2019), connection, chills, and diminished self are positively associated with small self and dispositional awe. Additionally, many previous studies have demonstrated that positive-awe experiences increased subjective wellbeing (Anderson et al, 2018;Bai et al, 2021;Krause & Hayward, 2015;Rudd et al, 2012;Sturm et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2019). In particular, feelings of awe positively predict life satisfaction through increased senses of connection to others (Krause & Hayward, 2015).…”

“…Awe, an emotional response to vast stimuli that transcend ones' current schema (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), has been widely researched from various social, cognitive, clinical, and physiological psychology perspectives. Awe increases feelings of being connected to others, community, and oneness (Bai et al, 2017;Nelson-Coffey et al, 2019;Shiota et al, 2007;Stellar et al, 2017;van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012), enhances feelings of oppression (Gordon et al, 2017), involves psychophysiological responses (Chirico et al, 2017;Quesnel & Riecke, 2018;Schurtz et al, 2012), and inspires a sense of diminished self (Bai et al, 2017(Bai et al, , 2021Gordon et al, 2017;Piff et al, 2015;Shiota et al, 2007). Previous studies have often utilized questionnaire methods to briefly and comprehensively assess such psychological changes after awe experiences (Gabriel et al, 2020;Graziosi & Yaden, 2021;Krogh-Jespersen et al, 2020;Price et al, 2021).…”

Effects of Ethnicity and Spiritual Intelligence in the Relationship Between Awe and Life Satisfaction Among Chinese Primary School Teachers

“…Positive psychology researchers proposed that awe, as a self-transcendent emotion, may promote individual wellbeing and personal change ( Haidt and Keltner, 2004 ), and awe experiences in daily life and in the laboratory led to greater momentary wellbeing (i.e., compared with no awe experience) ( Gordon et al, 2016 ). Awe could also reduce the negative impact of daily stress and negative emotions and improve life satisfaction ( Rudd et al, 2012 ; Bai et al, 2021 ). Therefore, as a positive emotion of self-transcendence, awe has a distinct emotional effect, which promotes the growth and transformation of primary school teachers and improves their life satisfaction.…”

Awe in Childhood: Conjectures About a Still Unexplored Research Area

“…During the last two decades, an increasing number of researchers have devoted their attention to highlight the effects of awe experiences on individuals. For example, awe has been found to diminish the sense of self (Bai et al, 2017;Sturm et al, 2020), and to promote spirituality (Saroglou et al, 2008;Van Cappellen and Saroglou, 2012), prosociality (Piff et al, 2015;Prade and Saroglou, 2016), humility (Stellar et al, 2018), environmentalism (Zhao et al, 2018), and well-being (Rudd et al, 2012;Bai et al, 2021). However, researchers who investigated awe, and how this emotion influence intraindividual and interpersonal changes, have primarily focused on the adult.…”