Awe Weakens the Desire for Money

Abstract

This research examined whether feeling awe weakens people's desire for money. Two experiments demonstrated that, as a self-transcendent emotion, awe decreased people's money desire. In Experiment 1, recalling a personal experience of awe makes people place less importance on money, compared with recalling an experience of happiness and recalling a neutral experience. In experiment 2, we examined different variants of awe, such as negative awe and non-nature awe. Viewing images that elicited awe, no matter what kind of awe, can induce people to put less effort into obtaining money. Process evidence suggested that awe's weakening of money desire was due to its power to make people transcend their mundane concerns. Our findings have implications for willingness to donate, price sensitivity, religious practices, and economic utilities.

Awe and the interconnected self

“…Moreover, there is a large body of literature on the positive association(s) between awe and prosociality (e.g., Jiang et al, 2018;Piff et al, 2015;Prade & Saroglou, 2016;Rudd et al, 2012;Stellar et al, 2017;Stellar et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2016). For example, people primed with awe-eliciting (vs. neutral) stimuli show more generosity and a higher concern for the welfare of others (Piff et al, 2015), are more likely to volunteer their time to help others (Rudd et al, 2012), and show more humility (Stellar et al, 2018), less aggressive tendencies (Yang et al, 2016), and more prosociality if they are disagreeable (Prade & Saroglou, 2016).…”

“…Awe has also been shown to provide spiritual benefits. Awe promotes a sense of connectedness (Nelson-Coffey et al, 2019), a willingness to travel to spiritual destinations such as Tibet (Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012), and prompts people to look beyond mundane concerns (Chirico & Yaden, 2018;Jiang et al, 2018;Shiota et al, 2017;Yaden et al, 2016).…”

“…Awe is uniquely transformative and associated with selftranscendent experiences (Chirico & Yaden, 2018;Jiang et al, 2018;Shiota et al, 2017;Nelson-Coffey et al, 2019;Yaden et al, 2016). Awe can flip one's frame of reference, such as viewing Earth from outside its atmosphere.…”

Relation Between Awe and Environmentalism: The Role of Social Dominance Orientation

“…We selected happiness as the comparison emotion because both emotions are positive and can broaden individuals’ perspective (Fredrickson, 2001), but they differ in whether perceptual vastness and need for accommodation are experienced or not (Shiota et al, 2007). Moreover, happiness has been used as a positive emotion with which to contrast the effects of awe in previous research (Rudd et al, 2012; Jiang et al, 2018).…”

Nature as Ally in Our Chronic Disease Epidemic

“…Perhaps you stand in awe as a shaft of light imbues a glade with a celestial beauty, feeling connected to that which is greater than yourself (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). Your existential capacity to connect with meaning (Li, Dou, Wang, & Nie, 2019), with the perspective born of understanding the smallness of self, and with the ''prosocial'' drive to connect with and help others (Piff, Dietze, Feinberg, Stancato, & Keltner, 2015;Zhang, Piff, Iyer, Koleva, & Keltner, 2014) becomes heightened, while distracted, materialistic thoughts subside ( Jiang, Yin, Mei, Zhu, & Zhou, 2018;Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012). Allow yourself to be moved by the beauty of the backlit dew on an intricate spiderweb, or in the astonishing fractal patterns in the seed cone you pick up, or the branching pattern in the leaves, the branches, the bark.…”