‘Standing in Awe’: The Effects of Awe on Body Perception and the Relation with Absorption

Abstract

The experience of awe is typically elicited in response to perceptually vast stimuli and is often characterized by feeling small and insignificant. In the present series of studies we aimed (1) to determine the effects of awe on body perception and (2) to elucidate the role of the personality trait of 'absorption' (i.e. the tendency to get fully immersed in one's experiences) in relation to the feeling of awe. Across 4 different studies, involving both lab-based and field experiments, we found that feelings of awe are associated with smaller body size estimates. We also found that absorption is a strong predictor of feelings of awe: people scoring high on absorption tended to report overall stronger feelings of aweirrespective of the experimental manipulation. In addition, experimentally manipulating absorption, by instructing participants to get fully absorbed in an external stimulus resulted in stronger feelings of awe. Thereby these findings illustrate that two key features underlying the experience of awe are changes in the perception of one's body and a tendency to get absorbed in internal or external stimuli.

Experimental Manipulations of Personal Control do Not Increase Illusory Pattern Perception

“…This study was conducted as a lab-based study. In addition to this study participants also conducted an unrelated study on feelings of awe and the effects on the perception of the self, which are reported elsewhere (van Elk, Karinen, Specker, Stamkou, & Baas, 2016). No additional measures were included beyond the items reported above.…”

The neural correlates of the awe experience: Reduced default mode network activity during feelings of awe

“…As control stimuli we used neutral videos of landscapes and positive videos of funny animals. In a previous behavioral study we found that overall participants reported stronger feelings of awe when allowed to passively watch the video compared to when counting the number of perspective changes (van Elk et al, 2016). To control for the potential confound that systematic differences between the content of the different types of videos would contribute to differences in brain activation between conditions, we manipulated the mindset with which participants were watching the videos.…”

“…To test our hypothesis, we conducted an fMRI study in which participants were presented with videos of natural phenomena that in previous studies have been used successfully to elicit feelings of awe (Piff et al, 2015;van Elk et al, 2016). As control stimuli we used neutral videos of landscapes and positive videos of funny animals.…”

“…In contrast, the analytical compared to the absorption condition was expected to result in an increased activation of the frontoparietal attention network (FPN, including lateral brain regions such as the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobe; cf., Fox et al, 2006). In the posttest we also included a pictorial measure of subjective selfperception (van Elk et al, 2016), as a proxy for the extent to which participants experienced a smaller self in association with awe videos. This should be reflected in a relative decreased activation of regions comprising the DMN for awe compared to control videos presented during the absorption condition.…”

“…Several studies have focused on the causes of awe, such as the elicitors and personality factors predisposing people to experience awe (Shiota et al, 2007;Tam, 2013). This work has established that people differ in their propensity for having awe-like experiences (Shiota et al, 2007) and that openness to experience and the personality trait of "absorption" are strong predictors of the intensity of awe experiences (Silvia, Fayn, Nusbaum, & Beaty, 2015;van Elk et al, 2016). Other studies have investigated the behavioral consequences of awe, indicating for instance that awe can increase prosocial behavior (Piff et al, 2015;Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010;Weinstein, Przybylski, & Ryan, 2009;Zhang, Piff, Iyer, Koleva, & Keltner, 2014), environmental awareness (Kamitsis & Francis, 2013;Tam, 2013), and well-being (Howell, Dopko, Passmore, & Buro, 2011;Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012;Zhang, Howell, & Iyer, 2014).…”