High on Wonder: People Who Experience More Awe Are Nicer, Better People
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Since awesome just means cool nowadays and not awe-inspiring, then real awe may be a bit like porn at this point—hard to define, but we know it when we see it. Yet, unlike copious porn exposure, researchers say that the more you experience genuine wonder, the better you will behave toward your fellow person as a result.
In a New York Times op-ed examining why humans experience this phenomenon, researchers Paul Piff and Dachar Keltner describe awe as “that often-positive feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.” And unlike many other highs we might get in this lifetime—drugs, orgasms, food comas—awe has a pay-it-forward kind of reward built in that could lead to being more decent. It might just be the one kind of high that makes you less of a monster.
Piff and Keltner write:
Why do humans experience awe? Years ago, one of us, Professor Keltner, argued (along with the psychologist Jonathan Haidt) that awe is the ultimate “collective” emotion, for it motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good. Through many activities that give us goose bumps — collective rituals, celebration, music and dance, religious gatherings and worship — awe might help shift our focus from our narrow self-interest to the interests of the group to which we belong.
Now, recent research of ours, to be published in next month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, provides strong empirical support for this claim. We found that awe helps bind us to others, motivating us to act in collaborative ways that enable strong groups and cohesive communities.
In a study of 1,500 Americans, the researchers found that people with more everyday awe in their lives would give 40 percent more of their lottery tickets away to those they were told had none. Participants who’d just gazed up at towering Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus trees on the UC Berkeley campus where the research was conducted—just long enough to get high on wonderment—were then more likely to help someone pick up a bunch of pens they’d dropped accidentally as part of the experiment.
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