Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: What Awe Is and Why It Matters
What Awe Is and Why It Matters
Knowledge check
Q1. Which of the following best describes the emotion of awe?
- A. A feeling of anger toward an injustice
- B. A feeling of wonder in the presence of something vast that exceeds our current understanding ✓
- C. A feeling of boredom during a routine task
- D. A feeling of contentment after finishing a meal
Why: Awe is typically defined as an emotion arising when we encounter something vast that challenges or exceeds our existing mental frameworks, often accompanied by a sense of wonder and a need to accommodate the experience.
Q2. According to psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, which two appraisal components are central to the experience of awe?
- A. Pleasure and guilt
- B. Vastness and need for accommodation ✓
- C. Fear and disgust
- D. Pride and jealousy
Why: Keltner and Haidt (2003) proposed that awe involves perceiving vastness, which can be physical or conceptual, and a need to accommodate that experience into one's existing mental schemas.
Q3. Which of the following is an example of awe triggered by a conceptual rather than physical vastness?
- A. Standing at the base of a towering mountain
- B. Watching a thunderstorm roll across the plains
- C. Grasping the scale of deep time in the history of the universe ✓
- D. Hearing a loud orchestral crescendo
Why: Conceptual vastness refers to ideas that stretch our understanding, such as the immense timescales of cosmic or geological history, rather than objects we can see or hear directly.
Q4. Why do researchers argue that awe may be beneficial for human well-being?
- A. It increases our focus on personal status and competition
- B. It tends to make people feel smaller and more connected to something larger than themselves, which can reduce self-focused concerns ✓
- C. It always leads to increased anxiety and stress responses
- D. It eliminates the need for social relationships
Why: Studies suggest awe can diminish self-centered thinking and foster feelings of connection and humility, which are linked to prosocial behavior and greater life satisfaction.
Q5. What is a common characteristic of awe that distinguishes it from many other positive emotions like joy or amusement?
- A. It is always experienced alone and never in groups
- B. It typically involves a sense of perceived vastness that challenges one's existing understanding of the world ✓
- C. It lasts only a fraction of a second and cannot be recalled
- D. It requires intense physical exertion
Why: While joy and amusement may be fleeting and centered on personal pleasure, awe is distinguished by the perception of vastness and the cognitive effort required to update one's mental models in response.
Module 2
Module 2: The Biology of Awe in the Body
The Biology of Awe in the Body
Knowledge check
Q1. Which part of the nervous system is primarily responsible for the body's 'rest and digest' response, which is often associated with calm states that can accompany awe?
- A. Sympathetic nervous system
- B. Parasympathetic nervous system ✓
- C. Central nervous system
- D. Enteric nervous system
Why: The parasympathetic nervous system slows the heart rate and promotes digestion and relaxation. Calm, settled states that can accompany awe are linked to parasympathetic activity, in contrast to the sympathetic 'fight or flight' system.
Q2. Which physical sensation is most commonly reported during moments of awe?
- A. Numbness in the extremities
- B. Goosebumps or chills ✓
- C. Increased appetite
- D. Blurred vision
Why: Goosebumps (piloerection) and chills are among the most frequently reported bodily responses to awe. Research on awe, including studies by Dacher Keltner and colleagues, documents these sensations as a common physical marker of the experience.
Q3. Which hormone, often associated with stress, may rise during intense emotional experiences including awe, and is produced by the adrenal glands?
- A. Insulin
- B. Melatonin
- C. Cortisol ✓
- D. Thyroxine
Why: Cortisol is released by the adrenal glands as part of the body's stress and arousal response. Intense emotional experiences, including awe, can involve changes in cortisol, though awe is often associated with more positive or balanced hormonal profiles than fear.
Q4. Why might awe cause a person to feel their sense of time has shifted, such as time seeming to slow down?
- A. Awe temporarily stops the heart
- B. Awe reduces the brain's focus on self and daily concerns, altering time perception ✓
- C. Awe increases the speed of nerve signals
- D. Awe causes the eyes to process images more slowly
Why: Research suggests awe shifts attention outward and diminishes self-focus, which can change how people perceive time. Many people report that time seems to expand or slow during awe-inducing moments, reflecting this change in attention rather than any physical stoppage.
Q5. Which brain region is involved in attention, self-referential thinking, and the sense of 'self' that tends to quiet down during awe experiences?
- A. Cerebellum
- B. Default mode network ✓
- C. Brainstem
- D. Occipital lobe
Why: The default mode network is a set of interconnected brain regions active during self-reflection, mind-wandering, and thinking about oneself. Studies suggest awe can reduce activity in this network, which may explain the feeling of being small or connected to something larger than the self.
Module 3
Module 3: Awe and the Brain's Reward Systems
Awe and the Brain's Reward Systems
Knowledge check
Q1. Which neurotransmitter is most closely associated with the brain's reward system and is often linked to pleasurable experiences, including some responses to awe?
- A. Serotonin
- B. Dopamine ✓
- C. Acetylcholine
- D. GABA
Why: Dopamine is central to the brain's reward circuitry, particularly the mesolimbic pathway, and research suggests it contributes to the pleasurable and motivating feelings associated with awe-inducing experiences.
Q2. Which brain region is a core part of the mesolimbic reward pathway and plays a key role in processing motivation and reward?
- A. The amygdala
- B. The hippocampus
- C. The ventral tegmental area ✓
- D. The cerebellum
Why: The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a midbrain structure that produces dopamine and projects to regions such as the nucleus accumbens, forming the core of the mesolimbic reward pathway.
Q3. What does the default mode network typically do, and how is it thought to be affected during intense awe experiences?
- A. It processes visual input, and awe increases its activity sharply.
- B. It supports self-referential thought, and awe is thought to reduce its activity, diminishing the sense of self. ✓
- C. It controls motor movement, and awe paralyzes it entirely.
- D. It regulates body temperature, and awe raises it.
Why: The default mode network is active during self-focused thinking and mind-wandering. Some researchers propose that awe quiets this network, which may underlie the feeling of being small or of the self temporarily fading.
Q4. Why might the brain's reward system respond to awe even when the experience is not personally beneficial in an obvious way?
- A. Reward systems respond only to food and sex.
- B. Awe involves novelty and a sense of vast, unexpected stimuli, which can engage reward-related learning and exploration. ✓
- C. Awe activates only the pain system, which is then mistaken for reward.
- D. Reward responses are random and unrelated to any experience.
Why: Novelty and surprise are strong drivers of dopamine-related learning and curiosity. Awe often involves encountering something vast or unfamiliar, which can engage these reward-linked motivational processes.
Q5. Which statement best describes how researchers measure the brain's response to awe in studies?
- A. By asking participants only to rate their mood afterward
- B. By using neuroimaging tools such as fMRI or EEG alongside self-report measures ✓
- C. By measuring only heart rate with no brain data
- D. By examining hair samples for hormone levels only
Why: Studies on awe typically combine neuroimaging methods like fMRI or EEG with self-report questionnaires, allowing researchers to link subjective experience with measurable brain activity.
Module 4
Module 4: Vastness, Perception, and the Self
Vastness, Perception, and the Self
Knowledge check
Q1. According to psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, which two components are considered essential to the experience of awe?
- A. Happiness and gratitude
- B. Perceived vastness and a need for accommodation ✓
- C. Fear and surprise
- D. Nostalgia and curiosity
Why: Keltner and Haidt (2003) proposed that awe requires perceiving something vast that challenges or exceeds our current mental frameworks, forcing us to accommodate or update our understanding of the world.
Q2. Which of the following is an example of a stimulus that commonly elicits awe?
- A. Reading a grocery list
- B. Standing beneath a towering redwood tree ✓
- C. Checking the time on a clock
- D. Sorting a pile of laundry
Why: Vast natural scenes like towering trees, mountains, and night skies are classic awe-inducing stimuli because they involve perceived vastness that is hard to fully comprehend.
Q3. What does the term 'self-diminishment' refer to in research on awe?
- A. Feeling less confident about one's abilities
- B. A temporary reduction in the sense of the self's importance relative to something larger ✓
- C. Losing one's memory of past events
- D. Decreasing physical energy after exercise
Why: Self-diminishment describes the reduced focus on the individual self that often accompanies awe, as people feel small in relation to a vast stimulus, which is linked to greater feelings of connection with others.
Q4. Studies on awe suggest that experiencing awe is associated with which of the following effects?
- A. Increased focus on personal status and wealth
- B. Greater prosocial behavior and feelings of connection to others ✓
- C. A stronger preference for isolation
- D. Heightened anxiety about the future
Why: Research by Piff and colleagues and others has found that awe tends to promote generosity, cooperation, and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself.
Q5. In the context of perception, why might a very large object like a mountain produce a stronger sense of awe than a small object?
- A. Large objects are always brighter in color
- B. Large objects exceed our ability to easily process and categorize them, prompting a shift in how we perceive our place in the world ✓
- C. Large objects are always more dangerous
- D. Small objects do not involve any visual processing
Why: Vast stimuli strain our existing mental schemas because we cannot easily take them in all at once, which creates the cognitive need for accommodation central to the experience of awe.
Module 5
Module 5: Awe in Nature and the Natural World
Awe in Nature and the Natural World
Knowledge check
Q1. According to psychologists who study awe, which of the following best describes the core feature of an awe experience?
- A. A feeling of intense boredom with routine surroundings
- B. The perception of something vast that challenges or exceeds our current understanding of the world ✓
- C. A sense of anger directed toward a perceived injustice
- D. Excitement about receiving a reward or achieving a goal
Why: Awe is typically defined as an emotion triggered by perceiving something vast (in size, scope, or complexity) that we cannot easily fit into our existing mental frameworks, prompting a need to accommodate the experience.
Q2. Which natural setting is most commonly cited in awe research as a reliable trigger for the emotion?
- A. A quiet suburban parking lot
- B. A crowded shopping mall
- C. A towering mountain range or a vast ocean ✓
- D. A windowless office building
Why: Large natural landscapes such as mountains, oceans, and starry skies are classic awe elicitors because they combine physical vastness with a sense of being small in comparison.
Q3. What is one commonly reported effect of awe experienced in nature?
- A. Increased feelings of self-importance and entitlement
- B. A temporary reduction in the focus on the self and greater feelings of connection to others ✓
- C. A permanent loss of the ability to feel emotions
- D. Heightened irritation toward other people
Why: Research suggests awe tends to diminish self-focused thinking and can increase prosocial feelings, such as a sense of belonging and willingness to help others.
Q4. Why might viewing a night sky full of stars produce awe?
- A. Because stars are visible only to a few people
- B. Because the scale of the universe makes individual human concerns seem small by comparison ✓
- C. Because stars produce loud sounds that startle observers
- D. Because darkness always causes fear and nothing else
Why: The immense distances and numbers of stars create a sense of vastness that can put personal worries into perspective, which is a key mechanism behind awe's effects on the self.
Q5. Which statement best reflects the scientific view on why nature tends to inspire awe more than many everyday settings?
- A. Nature is always dangerous, and danger is the only source of awe
- B. Natural scenes often combine vastness and novelty that strain our expectations and mental models ✓
- C. Nature has no measurable effect on human emotions
- D. Only people who grew up in cities can feel awe in nature
Why: Natural environments frequently present scale and complexity that exceed everyday experience, creating the vastness and need-for-accommodation that define awe.
Module 6
Module 6: Awe, Prosocial Behavior, and Connection
Awe, Prosocial Behavior, and Connection
Knowledge check
Q1. According to research on awe, which emotion most directly tends to follow an experience of awe?
- A. Increased anger toward others
- B. A greater desire to help or cooperate with others ✓
- C. A stronger urge to compete for status
- D. Heightened indifference to social surroundings
Why: Studies by Keltner and Haidt and later experiments (e.g., Piff et al., 2015) found that awe increases prosocial tendencies such as generosity, cooperation, and willingness to help strangers.
Q2. What does the 'small self' effect refer to in awe research?
- A. A decrease in self-esteem caused by feeling unimportant
- B. A temporary reduction in the sense of self-focus and self-importance during awe ✓
- C. The tendency to shrink physically when feeling intimidated
- D. A lasting loss of personal identity
Why: Awe often diminishes self-focus and self-importance, shifting attention outward. Researchers like Shiota and colleagues describe this as a 'small self' experience, which is thought to support connection with others.
Q3. Which of the following is a common trigger of awe discussed in the science of awe literature?
- A. Routine daily chores
- B. Vast natural scenery such as mountains or the night sky ✓
- C. Checking email
- D. Reading a short grocery list
Why: Awe is typically elicited by stimuli that are perceived as vast and that require mental accommodation, such as vast landscapes, the night sky, or large-scale human achievements.
Q4. Why might awe promote a sense of connection with other people?
- A. Awe makes people more distrustful of groups
- B. Awe reduces self-focus and fosters feelings of being part of something larger than oneself ✓
- C. Awe causes people to withdraw from social situations
- D. Awe increases the sense of individual superiority
Why: By diminishing preoccupation with the self and encouraging a feeling of belonging to something larger, awe can strengthen perceived connection to others and humanity.
Q5. In the Piff et al. (2015) study, what did participants who experienced awe (for example, while looking up at tall trees) tend to do?
- A. They refused to share any resources
- B. They were more likely to give time or resources to others ✓
- C. They became more competitive in games
- D. They reported no change in their behavior
Why: Piff and colleagues found that participants who experienced awe in a natural setting (looking up at tall trees) were more generous, such as being more willing to volunteer time to help a researcher.
Module 7
Module 7: Cultivating Awe in Everyday Life
Cultivating Awe in Everyday Life
Knowledge check
Q1. Which of the following best describes the core emotional experience of awe?
- A. A feeling of intense anger toward an injustice
- B. A feeling of wonder when encountering something vast that challenges our existing understanding of the world ✓
- C. A feeling of boredom when routine tasks become repetitive
- D. A feeling of anxiety about an uncertain future
Why: Awe is typically defined as the emotion arising when we encounter something vast that we cannot fully comprehend or that requires us to update our mental frameworks. It combines a sense of wonder with a feeling of being in the presence of something larger than ourselves.
Q2. Which everyday activity is most likely to help cultivate awe, according to research in this area?
- A. Multitasking while checking email
- B. Spending time looking at a night sky or a natural landscape ✓
- C. Scrolling quickly through social media feeds
- D. Rushing between scheduled appointments
Why: Natural settings and expansive views, such as a starry sky or a mountain vista, are classic sources of awe because they present scale and beauty that exceed our everyday experience. Slowing down to notice them is a practical way to invite awe into daily life.
Q3. What is one reason researchers believe awe benefits well-being?
- A. Awe makes people more focused on their own status
- B. Awe tends to shift attention away from the self and toward something larger ✓
- C. Awe increases the desire to compare oneself with others
- D. Awe reduces curiosity about the world
Why: Studies suggest that awe diminishes self-focus and fosters feelings of connection, humility, and belonging. This shift in attention is thought to contribute to greater life satisfaction and prosocial behavior.
Q4. Which practice is an example of intentionally cultivating awe in everyday life?
- A. Ignoring surroundings to concentrate on a single task
- B. Taking a few minutes each day to notice and reflect on something you find remarkable, such as the complexity of a leaf ✓
- C. Avoiding new experiences to maintain routine
- D. Focusing only on problems that need immediate solving
Why: Deliberately noticing and reflecting on remarkable aspects of ordinary things trains attention toward wonder. Because awe often arises from perceiving complexity and scale, this kind of mindful observation is an accessible everyday practice.
Q5. Why might awe be easier to experience when we approach familiar things with fresh attention?
- A. Familiar things are always less interesting than new ones
- B. Fresh attention allows us to notice details and complexity we normally overlook ✓
- C. Familiar things cannot produce any emotional response
- D. Awe only occurs in unfamiliar countries
Why: Habituation causes us to stop noticing things we see often. Approaching familiar objects or places with curiosity, as if seeing them for the first time, reveals hidden detail and complexity, which can spark awe even in ordinary surroundings.