Awe is an emotion comparable to wonder but less joyous . On Robert Plutchik 's wheel of emotions awe is modeled as a combination of surprise and fear .
51-521: Awe is an emotion of respectful wonder. AWE or awe may also refer to: Awe One dictionary definition is "an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: [e.g.] in awe of God; in awe of great political figures ." Another dictionary definition is a "mixed emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might: [e.g.] We felt awe when contemplating
102-434: A "sense of reverence in religious and secular contexts" in 177 patients following a coronary artery bypass. The researchers sought to find if religious forms of reverence practiced through faith and prayer yielded similar results to secular forms of reverence in patient recovery. "Because reverence includes an affective as well as a cognitive component, we see it as a form of positive feeling/emotion associated with injection of
153-799: A "sublime stimulus-in-context" is the principal cause) only when they are not in actual physical danger. Konečni postulated that the evolutionary origins of awe are from unexpected encounters with natural wonders, which would have been sexually selected for because reverence , intellectual sensitivity, emotional sensitivity, and elite membership would have been attractive characteristics in a mate, and these characteristics would also have given individuals greater access to awe-inspiring situations. Since high-status people are more likely to be safe from danger and to have access to awe-inspiring situations, Konečni argued that high-status people should feel awe more often than low-status people. However, this hypothesis has yet to be tested and verified. A third evolutionary theory
204-522: A Forgotten Virtue," Paul Woodruff explores the contemporary concept of reverence. He notes that both modern society and its discussions about ancient cultures in which reverence was prized, such as Greece and China, often lack a genuine understanding of reverence. Woodruff defines reverence as the ability to feel awe directed at the transcendent, respect for others, and shame over one's own faults, when these emotions are appropriate. This definition encompasses respect, shame, and aspects. While recognizing
255-404: A culture with others, and this must support a degree of ceremony." Religion is not required to provoke reverence, but rather religion depends on the emotion of reverence. Paul Woodruff examines the historical significance of reverence as a virtue. In both Ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations, reverence was a force that upheld social order and harmony. In Greek culture, reverence had roots in
306-399: A diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial relationality, greater social integration, and a heightened sense of meaning.” Awe fosters optimism, connection, and well-being while reducing anxiety, depression, and social rejection. It reshapes one's self-perception, promotes prosocial actions, strengthens the sense of connection to humanity, and deepens individual feelings of meaning. In
357-565: A distinctively religious emotion would be reverence". But it is not entirely distinct from emotions that are not related to transcendence or religion. "Reverence is indeed graver, and an attitude in which one is more given over, than its secular approximations in the shape of approval or esteem or respect". But this does not make it purely religious. Immanuel Kant "was able to claim reverence as our principal moral emotion without invoking any grounding theological basis for this". "Similarly for its bracing sibling, awe: it figures in our experience of
408-661: A lower need for cognitive closure and are more likely to describe themselves in oceanic (e.g. "I am an inhabitant of the planet Earth"), individuated, and universal terms, as opposed to more specific terms (e.g. "I have blonde hair"). A more recent study found that experiencing awe increased perceptions of time and led to a greater willingness to donate time, but not to donate money. The greater willingness to donate time appeared to be driven by decreased impatience after experiencing awe. Experiencing awe also led participants to report greater momentary life satisfaction and stronger preferences for experiential versus material goods (e.g. prefer
459-475: A massage to a watch). Awe, unlike most other positive emotions, has been shown to increase systematic processing , rather than heuristic processing , leading participants who experience awe to become less susceptible to weak arguments. Awe has been studied in the context of historical and cross-cultural emotions research, in which the parameters and expression of specific emotions are likely to differ from our own understanding. In Ancient Greece, awe or reverence
510-441: A mental ‘reset button,’ wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration". Great artists sometimes give concrete form to culturally derived beliefs, values, and group identities that propose profound meaning and purpose. Reverence for artworks that instantiate such central aspects of culture can buffer the existential anxiety that follows from reminders of
561-540: A myth crafted by Protagoras in which Zeus bestowed reverence and justice upon humanity so that society would survive. In classical Greek society, as illustrated in its surviving literature, reverence served as a motivating force, encouraging people to act justly and humbly to contribute to societal improvement. The feeling of awe toward what transcends humanity helps people better respect one another. After examining classical Greek culture, Woodruff turns his attention to classical Chinese Confucian society, particularly
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#1732771989562612-449: A positive or negative experience, but when asked to describe events that elicit awe, most people only cite positive experiences. One definition of awe relevant to the research discussed later in this article is established by Monroy and Keltner : awe is defined as the "perceived vastness" and "need for accommodation" in shifting one's mentality regarding the world and deviating from one’s usual frame of reference. The term awe stems from
663-480: A prosocial emotion contributing to the forging of larger social and cultural identities. Awe has recently become a topic of interest in atheist groups, in response to statements from some religious individuals who say that atheists do not experience awe, or that experiencing awe makes one spiritual or religious, rather than an atheist. For example, see Oprah 's comment that she would not consider swimmer Diana Nyad an atheist because Nyad experiences awe, as well as
714-442: A renewed recognition of reverence in society. Woodruff asserts that true reverence pertains to aspects beyond human influence: the "ideal of unity," which transcends political concerns. The object of reverence may vary, encompassing God, unity, or anything surpassing human capabilities. Woodruff emphasizes that reverence values truth itself more than any human creation that attempts to represent truth. Furthermore, he posits that
765-411: Is "a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe ; veneration ". Reverence involves a humbling of the self in respectful recognition of something perceived to be greater than the self. The word "reverence" is often used in relationship with religion . This is because religion often stimulates this emotion through recognition of a god , the supernatural , and the ineffable . Like awe , it
816-418: Is an emotion in its own right, and can be felt outside of the realm of religion . Whereas awe may be characterized as an overwhelming " sensitivity to greatness," reverence is seen more as "acknowledging a subjective response to something excellent in a personal ( moral or spiritual ) way, but qualitatively above oneself". Robert C. Solomon describes awe as passive, but reverence as active, noting that
867-433: Is an ingredient in what he terms a peak experience , which is crucial to having a fulfilling life. Maslow states that "wonder, awe, reverence, humility, surrender, and even worship before the greatness of the experience are often reported" in peak experiences. Religion is a possible, but not a necessary context for this. Indeed, religion can unfortunately sequester reverence: "'Religionizing' only one part of life secularizes
918-420: Is expressed by the terms aidôs and sebas . In ancient Mesopotamia, awe is associated with the terms melam (Sumerian) and melammu (Akkadian), a type of "awe-inspiring aura" or radiance possessed by gods, heroes kings, temples, and other things, and possessing, in some contexts, a prosocial capacity. An archaeological study of awe within the framework of the monumental. Poverty Point, USA, examines its role as
969-472: Is in its infancy and has primarily focused on describing awe (e.g., physical displays of awe and who is likely to experience awe) and the social consequences of awe (e.g., helping behavior and decreased susceptibility to persuasion by weak messages). A recent paper published a in-depth review on the research on awe. Shiota, Keltner, and Mossman (2007) had participants write about a time they felt awe. They found that nature and art/music were frequently cited as
1020-407: Is that awe serves to draw attention away from the self and toward the environment. This occurs as a way to build informational resources when one is in the presence of novel and complex stimuli that cannot be assimilated by one's current knowledge structures. In other words, awe functions to increase systematic, accommodative processing, and this would have been adaptive for survival. This hypothesis
1071-715: Is the most recent and has received the most empirical support, as described in the section on social consequences of awe . Humanistic/forensic psychologist Louise Sundararajan also critiqued Keltner and Haidt's model by arguing that being in the presence of a more powerful other elicits admiration, but does not require mental accommodation because admiration merely reinforces existing social hierarchies. Sundararajan expanded upon Keltner and Haidt's model by arguing that first, an individual must be confronted with perceived vastness. If an individual can assimilate this perceived vastness into her or his existing mental categories, she/he will not experience awe. If an individual cannot assimilate
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#17327719895621122-442: Is uncommon (10%). Cross-cultural research is needed to determine whether physical displays of awe differ by culture. Some individuals may be more prone to experiencing awe. Using self- and peer-reports, researchers found that regularly experiencing awe was associated with openness to experience (self and peer-ratings) and extroversion (self-ratings). Later studies also found that people who regularly experience awe ("awe-prone") have
1173-878: The Analects , where he finds filial piety to express reverence in the family context. He highlights the significance of the concept of " li ", which also encompasses civility and reverence. There's a parallel between Greek and Chinese societies in that in both, notions of reverence flourished as polytheism gave way to agnosticism. In these changing circumstances, reverence endures and prospers because it addresses fundamental aspects of human life—family, hierarchy, and mortality. Woodruff argues that deviating from tradition does not necessarily imply irreverence, and he critiques relativism , advocating instead that people critically evaluate all cultures and forms of reverence. Abraham Maslow in his Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences , deals extensively with reverence. Reverence
1224-416: The feeling of awe (i.e., becoming awestruck) implies paralysis , whereas feelings of reverence are associated more with active engagement and responsibility toward that which one reveres. Nature , science , literature , philosophy , great philosophers , leaders , artists , art , music , wisdom , and beauty may each act as the stimulus and focus of reverence. In his book "Reverence: Renewing
1275-585: The sublime . In Awe: The Delights and Dangers of Our Eleventh Emotion , neuropsychologist and positive psychology guru Paul Pearsall presents a phenomenological study of awe. He defines awe as an "overwhelming and bewildering sense of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the narrow band of our consciousness." Pearsall sees awe as the 11th emotion, beyond those now scientifically accepted (i.e., love , fear , sadness , embarrassment , curiosity , pride , enjoyment , despair , guilt , and anger )." Most definitions allow for awe to be
1326-547: The Old English word ege , meaning "terror, dread, awe," which may have arisen from the Greek word áchos , meaning "pain." The word awesome originated from the word awe in the late 16th century, to mean "filled with awe." The word awful also originated from the word awe , to replace the Old English word egeful ("dreadful"). Keltner and Haidt proposed an evolutionary explanation for awe. They suggested that
1377-412: The backdrop for experiencing reverence. Because these are banal and commonplace, the emotion of reverence often fades without us noticing. Woodruff contends that in a functioning society, reverence, ceremony, and respect remain indispensable even though their significance may go unnoticed. He clarifies that it's not reverence itself but rather the concept of reverence that is absent. Woodruff hopes for
1428-486: The connection between reverence and religion, Woodruff argues that politics plays a significant role in this virtue. His goal in the book is to dispel the common misconception that reverent emotions are exclusively tied to religion. According to Woodruff, meaningful human life relies on ceremony and ritual , but "[w]ithout reverence, rituals are empty". These ceremonial practices occur in various settings, including homes, meetings, voting, and religious contexts, shaping
1479-412: The current emotion of awe originated from feelings of primordial awe – a hard-wired response that low-status individuals felt in the presence of more powerful, high-status individuals, which would have been adaptive by reinforcing social hierarchies. This primordial awe would have occurred only when the high-status person had characteristics of vastness (in size, fame, authority, or prestige) that required
1530-480: The development of a larger sense of connection with the world and the many others (human and nonhuman) in it". They call this "transpersonal reverence" and make a case for the role of reverence as "a goal of therapy, a sign of optimal functioning". They believe a therapist must revere the patient and the patient must learn to revere others and themselves in order for the therapy to be effective. David Pugmire's article, "The Secular Reception of Religious Music" explores
1581-483: The eliciting stimulus. Although most definitions allow for awe to be positive or negative, participants described only positive precipitants to awe, and it is therefore possible that positive awe and awe+fear (i.e., horror) are distinctly different emotions. Awe is a unique emotional state comprising eight to ten positive feelings triggered by encountering novel stimuli that challenge the familiar. Awe involves five processes linked to well-being: “shifts in neurophysiology,
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1632-447: The epiphanic experience". Haidt notes that since Maslow studied peak experiences, little empirical research has been done to examine such experiences and the moral transformations associated with emotions such as gratitude, elevation, awe, admiration, and reverence. Haidt's own work in these areas suggests that potent feelings of reverence may be associated with the peak experiences accompanying moral transformation which "seem to push
1683-400: The evolutionary origins of awe. Despite the meaningfulness that feelings of awe can bring, awe has rarely been scientifically studied. As Richard Lazarus wrote in his book on emotions, "Given their [awe and wonder's] importance and emotional power, it is remarkable that so little scientific attention has been paid to aesthetic experience as a source of emotion in our lives". Research on awe
1734-541: The experience of reverence through music. In particular he looks at how religious music has the capacity to instill emotions of reverence, awe, wonder, and veneration in secular people who lack the context to understand the transcendent through the religion associated with the music. "Sacred music seems to have a surprising power over unbelievers not just to quicken or delight them as other music does, but also to ply them, as little else can, with what might be called devotional feelings". Even with this though, Pugmire argues that
1785-521: The experience of understanding a grand scientific theory. Keltner and Haidt propose that awe can have both positive and negative connotations, and that there are five additional features of awe that can color one's experience of the emotion: threat , beauty , ability , virtue , and the supernatural . Keltner and Haidt's model has been critiqued by some researchers, including psychologist Vladimir J. Konečni. Konečni argued that people can experience awe, especially aesthetic awe (of which, according to him,
1836-569: The experience to end, felt connected with the world, and felt small or insignificant. The study of awe in the West is relatively recent, and the field especially lacks information on awe in non-Western contexts. Nomura, Tsuda, and Rappleye found that the effects of vastness and accommodation leading to a diminished sense of self were consistent among Chinese and American participants; however, Chinese participants had more interpersonal awe experiences than American participants’ self-awe experiences. Nature
1887-534: The importance of vastness and accommodation in experiencing awe. "Vastness refers to anything that is experienced as being much larger than the self"; accommodation means "adjusting mental structures that cannot assimilate a new experience". Their research how awe is experienced through moral, spiritual, and aesthetic means, helps us understand reverence. Their study includes a survey of previous literature about awe "in religion, philosophy, sociology, and psychology" and "[r]elated states such as admiration, elevation, and
1938-421: The inevitability of human mortality. Across history, cultures have revered art as a "forum for representing in an enduring medium those individuals who are held up as embodiments of virtue and lasting significance". From the standpoint of experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP), Thomas and Schlutsmeyer suggest that "[r]everence felt in meaningful interpersonal connectedness is one starting point for
1989-480: The language of reverence better than philosophy does" and connects most fluently with preexisting reverential instincts. In the presence of death, says Woodruff, an expectation of reverence is natural, though its expression is culturally-variant. Religions come and go, but cultural expressions of reverence are constant. "You need not believe in God to be reverent, but to develop an occasion for reverence you must share
2040-550: The low-status individual to engage in Piagetian accommodation (changing one's mental representation of the world to accommodate the new experience). Keltner and Haidt propose that this primordial awe later generalized to any stimulus that is both vast and that requires accommodation. These stimuli still include being in the presence of a more powerful other (prototypical primordial awe), but also spiritual experiences, grand vistas, natural forces/disasters, human-made works, music, or
2091-572: The perceived vastness, then she/he will need to accommodate to the new information (change her or his mental categories). If this is not accomplished, an individual will experience trauma, such as developing PTSD . If an individual can accommodate, she/he will experience awe and wonder. By this model, the same vast experience could lead to increased rigidity (when assimilation succeeds), increased flexibility (when assimilation fails but accommodation succeeds), or psychopathology (when both assimilation and accommodation fail). Sundararajan did not speculate on
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2142-433: The primary focus of reverence is something that serves as a reminder of human limitations. Woodruff highlights the role of music, asserting that "[r]everence cannot be expressed in a creed; its most apt expression is in music". He illustrates this idea through an analogy involving a quartet with varying skill levels performing a Mozart piece. In this scenario, reverence arises because: Woodruff believes "[a]rt speaks
2193-407: The reception and expression of which religious imagery is especially well-suited, and not accidentally". The emotion of the last instance refers to the capacity of the emotional imagination to lose the sense of self and engage in the infinite and the ineffable. Pugmire suggests that religion "Provides a strikingly apt vocabulary for the expression of emotion of the last instance". Reverence is perhaps
2244-443: The response to this video by interfaith activist Chris Stedman . Awe is often tied to religion , but awe can also be secular. For more examples, see the writings on being an "aweist" by sociologist and atheist Phil Zuckerman, the book Religion for Atheists by author Alain de Botton , and the video on how secular institutions should inspire awe by performance philosopher Jason Silva . Reverence (emotion) Reverence
2295-524: The rest of it". Maslow contends that religion seeks to access reverence through ritual, but that the familiarity of the ritual can deaden any reverent feelings. Albert Schweitzer sought for years for the basis of a new worldview. One day, while in a boat on the river in Gabon, it struck him with great force and clarity: " Reverence for Life " (In German: Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben ). Empirical studies on reverence are scarce. One intriguing study examined
2346-478: The sacred into various worldviews." Such positive emotions were believed to help in patient recovery. They found that traditional religious involvement improved health outcomes, and secular reverence reduced the likelihood of postoperative complications, but that "[r]eligious reverence did not have the same beneficial effect as secular reverence on bypass recovery". They inferred that reverence "seems to enhance recovery following bypass". Keltner and Haidt studied
2397-403: The same set of experiments by Shiota, Keltner, and Mossman (2007), the researchers had participants write about a time they recently experienced natural beauty (awe condition) or accomplishment (pride condition). When describing the experience of natural beauty, participants were more likely to report that they felt unaware of day-to-day concerns, felt the presence of something greater, didn't want
2448-607: The secularist cannot fully comprehend the nature of sacred art including sacred music. "Its undoubted expressiveness can lead him at most to excesses of feeling, not to emotion in the fullest sense, i.e., emotion with appropriate objects sustained by appropriate judgments". Pugmire believes that reverence belongs to the range of emotions that can be classified in their devotional or sacred forms, "Emotions of reverence, solemnity, agape, hope, serenity, and ecstasy". But this classification of emotions poses an interesting question: can any emotion be purely religious? "A central candidate for
2499-414: The sublime, of which Kant purports to find an entirely secular account." To connect the secular and the sacred emotions Pugmire looks at the emotions which can be experienced equally in both contexts. These are "Love, humility, sorrow, pity, joy, serenity, ecstasy". Pugmire then suggests that devotional emotion is "The transfiguring of mundane emotion into what one might call emotion of the last instance, to
2550-548: The works of Bach. The observers were in awe of the destructive power of the new weapon." In general, awe is directed at objects considered to be more powerful than the subject, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza , the Grand Canyon , the vastness of the cosmos , or a deity . Awe is difficult to define, and the meaning of the word has changed over time. Related concepts are wonder , admiration , elevation , and
2601-643: Was also found to be very relevant to Japanese participants’ awe experiences. However, the effect was not as positive as it was for American participants. Researchers have also attempted to observe the physical, non-verbal reactions to awe by asking participants to remember a time they felt awe and to express the emotion nonverbally. Using this method, researchers observed that awe is often displayed through raised inner eyebrows (78%), widened eyes (61%), and open, slightly drop-jawed mouths (80%). A substantial percent of people also display awe by slightly jutting forward their heads (27%) and visibly inhaling (27%), but smiling
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