The Evolutionary Function of Awe: A Review and Integrated Model of Seven Theoretical Perspectives

Lucht, Antonia; van Schie, Hein T.

doi:10.1177/17540739231197199

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 146 publications

(272 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Consistent with the view that awe may serve important adaptive functions for individuals (e.g., Chirico & Yaden, 2018;Keltner & Haidt, 2003;Lucht & van Schie, 2023;Richesin & Baldwin, 2023), our studies present new evidence showing that sensitivity toward awe-inspiring visual experiences is present early in life. Children differentiate diverse types of awe-inspiring stimuli from other kinds of everyday stimuli, even when the comparison stimuli share some key features of the awe-inspiring stimuli in our studies (e.g., similarities involving nature, perceptual vastness, background music, and diversity of scenes).…”

Section: Gen Er a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Seeing awe: How children perceive awe‐inspiring visual experiences

O'bi,

Yang

2024

Child Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Awe is a profound, self‐transcendent emotion. To illuminate its origin, four preregistered studies examined how U.S. 4‐ to 9‐year‐old children perceive awe‐inspiring stimuli (N = 444, 55% female, 58% White, tested in 2020–2023). Awe‐inspiring expansive nature (Study 1) and natural disaster scenes (Study 2) evoked perceived vastness, motivation to explore, and awareness of the unknown more than everyday scenes did (d ranging 0.32–1.76). Compared to expansive social stimuli, expansive nature stimuli more positively affected children's sense of self (Study 3). Diverse awe‐inspiring scenes (vast nature, natural disasters, and slow‐motion objects) all elicited awe and higher learning motivation than everyday scenes did (Study 4). These findings suggest that children appreciate awe‐inspiring visual experiences, illuminating the origins and nature of awe as a self‐transcendent experience.

show abstract

Section: Gen Er a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Seeing awe: How children perceive awe‐inspiring visual experiences

O'bi,

Yang

2024

Child Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In other words, awe is an emotional response that experiences the shock of an external stimulus and requires cognitive restructuring to adapt to it (Richesin and Baldwin, 2023). The characteristics of vastness and accommodation dictate that awe has a transformative ability to induce psychological changes and facilitate behavioural adjustments (Lucht and van Schie, 2024).…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Formulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does dispositional awe promote customer citizenship behaviours? The multiple mediating effects of construal level and social connectedness

Zhang,

2024

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the digital economy, the relationship between customers and companies is a win-win cooperation, and value co-creation has become the mainstream business development concept. Against this background, customer citizenship behaviours have received increasing and widespread attention in marketing and consumer behaviour research. However, previous studies have not sufficiently considered the importance of trait emotions in predicting customer citizenship behaviours. By focusing on a specific emotional disposition with positive functions, dispositional awe, this study develops an integrative model based on the prototype model of awe and the elaborated model of awe’s prosocial effects. This model examines the impact of dispositional awe on customer citizenship behaviours and analyses the roles of construal level and social connectedness in it. Drawing on a sample of 701 questionnaires from Chinese adults and using structural equation modelling, this study finds that dispositional awe contributes positively to three types of customer citizenship behaviours: making recommendations, helping other customers, and providing feedback. In addition, dispositional awe can influence customer citizenship behaviours through the independent mediating effect of social connectedness as well as the serial mediating effect of construal level and social connectedness. These findings suggest that frequent experiences of awe help develop an individual’s internal abstract mindset and subjective sense of connection to external society, thereby motivating customer citizenship behaviours. This study provides valuable insights into whether and how dispositional awe can influence customer citizenship behaviours and offers operational strategies for marketing practice.

show abstract

Unveiling the underlying structure of awe in virtual reality and in autobiographical recall: an exploratory study

Chirico,

Borghesi,

Yaden

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last two decades, awe has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers. The use of virtual reality has been identified as one of the most effective techniques for eliciting awe, in addition to more personalized methods for inducing emotion, such as autobiographical recall. However, previous measures of awe were unable to uncover the hidden structure of this experience. Awe experience scale (AWE-S) has been validated as a comprehensive measure of contingent awe in English, providing new opportunities for analysis. In this two-phases study, we investigated whether the latent structure of the experience of awe evoked by the autobiographical recall technique (Study 1) overlapped with that induced by exposing participants to a validated virtual reality awe-eliciting training (Study 2). The original English AWE-S structure held both in autobiographical recall induction and virtual reality-based elicitation. Despite evidence of overlap between English and Italian structures, low correlations were found between Italian trait measures used to test the concurrent validity of the AWE-S in the Italian sample and AWE-S state dimensions. This study highlights cultural differences in awe experience, trait, and state variations, and provides new insights into the standardized induction of this emotion through simulated environments.

show abstract

The Evolutionary Function of Awe: A Review and Integrated Model of Seven Theoretical Perspectives

Cited by 4 publications

References 146 publications

Seeing awe: How children perceive awe‐inspiring visual experiences

Seeing awe: How children perceive awe‐inspiring visual experiences

Does dispositional awe promote customer citizenship behaviours? The multiple mediating effects of construal level and social connectedness

Unveiling the underlying structure of awe in virtual reality and in autobiographical recall: an exploratory study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About