Awe: More than a lab experience—A rejoinder to “awe: ‘more than a feeling’” by Alice Chirico and Andrea Gaggioli (original) (raw)
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The Potential of Virtual Reality for the Investigation of Awe
The emotion of awe is characterized by the perception of vastness and a need for accommodation, which can include a positive and/or negative valence. While a number of studies have successfully manipulated this emotion, the issue of how to elicit particularly intense awe experiences in laboratory settings remains. We suggest that virtual reality (VR) is a particularly effective mood induction tool for eliciting awe. VR provides three key assets for improving awe. First, VR provides users with immersive and ecological yet controlled environments that can elicit a sense of " presence, " the subjective experience of " being there " in a simulated reality. Further, VR can be used to generate complex, vast stimuli, which can target specific theoretical facets of awe. Finally, VR allows for convenient tracking of participants' behavior and physiological responses, allowing for more integrated assessment of emotional experience. We discussed the potential and challenges of the proposed approach with an emphasis on VR's capacity to raise the signal of reactions to emotions such as awe in laboratory settings.
An Exploratory Study into the Nature of Awe
The current study was an exploration into the nature of awe. The sample consisted of 135 participants recruited online using Amazon Mechanical Turk. These participants were randomly assigned to one of four research conditions: Novel Positive, Novel Negative, Recollected Positive, and Recollected Negative. The study looked at awe, affect and life satisfaction, which were evaluated over the course of twenty-four hours. First, the question of “awe-proneness”, or differences in participants’ experience of awe, was examined. The results showed that openness to experience was related to greater feelings of initial awe in the Novel Positive condition. Emotional Stability, on the other hand, seemed to act in a compensatory fashion, helping to decrease participants’ negative affect more quickly and to maintain participants’ feelings of life satisfaction for longer. Second, the degree to which there were different states of awe was evaluated. The results did not show evidence to suggest that there were positive and negative states of awe, however the novel induction task elicited stronger feelings of awe than the recollection task. Third, different outcomes related to awe were explored. The results showed that Positive Induction directions were related to higher initial ratings of both positive affect and life satisfaction. Overall, the study points to a need for future research to distinguish the cognitive process of awe from the “awe experience.”
The resurgence of awe in psychology: Promise, hope, and perils
The Humanistic Psychologist, 2017
The sense of awe, also defined as a perception of vastness that cannot be assimilated but can be accommodated; or as the experience of humility and wonder--adventure--toward living, has become a “hot” topic in psychology. This article considers the basis for this trend, some promising avenues of research, and several challenges to the mainstream--quantitative--perspective on awe. It is concluded that while mainstream perspectives on awe appear to have beneficial effects on an impressive array of human behaviors, the relative neglect of historically rooted, in depth, qualitative approaches to awe pose notable perils. Among these perils are the comparative reductionism of the findings on awe to overt and measurable reactions; the neglect of longer term, life-changing experiences of awe, and the neglect of the broader social implications of awe-based transformation. Keywords: awe, awe-based, positive psychology, happiness, humanistic, existential, social-political, methodology
The Resurgence of Awe in Psychology: Promise, Hope, and Perils 1
The sense of awe, also defined as a perception of vastness that cannot be assimilated but can be accommodated; or as the experience of humility and wonder--adventure--toward living, has become a “hot” topic in psychology. This article considers the basis for this trend, some promising avenues of research, and several challenges to the mainstream--quantitative--perspective on awe. It is concluded that while mainstream perspectives on awe appear to have beneficial effects on an impressive array of human behaviors, the relative neglect of historically rooted, in depth, qualitative approaches to awe pose notable perils. Among these perils are the comparative reductionism of the findings on awe to overt and measurable reactions; the neglect of longer term, life-changing experiences of awe, and the neglect of the broader social implications of awe-based transformation. Keywords: awe, awe-based, positive psychology, happiness, humanistic, existential, social-political, methodology
The Development of the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S): A Multifactorial Measure for a Complex Emotion
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2018
Awe is a complex emotion composed of an appraisal of vastness and a need for accommodation. The purpose of this study was to develop a robust state measure of awe, the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S), based on the extant experimental literature. In study 1, participants (N = 501) wrote about an intense moment of awe that they had experienced and then completed a survey about their experience. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a 6-factor structure, including: altered time perception (F1); self-diminishment (F2); connectedness (F3); perceived vastness (F4); physical sensations (F5); need for accommodation (F6). Internal consistency was strong for each factor (α ≥ .80). Study 2 confirmed the 6-factor structure (N = 636) using fit indices (CFI = .905; RMSEA = .054). Each factor of the AWE-S is significantly correlated with the awe items of the modified Differential Emotions Scale (mDES) and Dispositional Positive Emotion Scale (D-PES). Triggers, valence, and themes associated with awe experiences are reported.
Human Communication Research
Awe is a widely researched, self-transcendent emotion with a robust ability to prompt prosocial behavior. Within the communication and media disciplines, however, the effects of awe have received only limited empirical attention. Moreover, extant research has ignored the role that media affordances may play in engendering awe and prosocial outcomes. This article presents two studies that explore the prosocial consequences of awe, as mediated by presence and when engendered by immersive features of various media, including virtual reality (VR). Study 1 (N = 154) found that awe content presented in highly immersive VR induced awe via an effect entirely mediated by presence, though impacts on subsequent prosocial outcomes were inconsistent. Study 2 (N = 188) attempted to replicate and clarify the prosociality results from Study 1, as well as contextualize them with respect to eudaimonic appreciation and hedonic enjoyment. Results demonstrated awe effects across all three measures of pr...