Attitudes, Personality, and Well-being

Background

Awe has been found to be a self-transcendent emotion that can shift people focus from their narrow self-interests to a focus on the broader interests of social collective (Stellar et al., 2017). And in this way, awe has been suggested to have played the evolutionary function of helping to bind us to the social collective. Indeed, awe has been found to promote a range of pro-social behaviours (Piff et al., 2015; Prade & Saroglou, 2016; Rudd et al., 2012) and drive a stronger desire for collective engagement (Bai et al., 2017). And more recently, studies have found that the pro-social effects of awe extend beyond human in-groups, and awe has been found to also reduce aggression towards animal targets (Yang et al., 2016) and promote concern for the environment (Wang & Lyu, 2019; Yang et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2018).

Research Questions / Hypotheses

Building on the emerging literature around awe, we sought to examine whether there was a relationship between awe and a broader sense of moral concern and connectedness beyond the human in-group. In particular, we aimed to examine whether there was:

• (H1) a positive relationship between awe and a greater sense of moral expansiveness (a generalized sense of moral concern towards out-group humans, animals, plants, and the environment)
• (H2) a positive relationship between awe and a greater sense of connectedness to super-ordinate categories, such as (a) all-humanity or (b) all living beings and the universe (allo-inclusive identity). Further, as exploratory questions, we also examined the relationship between awe and people’s sense of attachment, fusion, and personality.

Participants

An initial sample of 363 students who were enrolled in a first-year psychology course at an Australian university were recruited in exchange for course credit. 71 students were excluded due to failing at least one attention check. This provided a final sample of 292 students.

Methods

Participants were recruited via an online student research participation program, and were directed to an online survey to complete a series of surveys designed to measure their disposition for awe, moral expansiveness, and sense of connectedness. Participants disposition for awe was measured using the Disposition for Awe subscale from the Disposition for Positive Emotions scale (Shiota et al., 2006), their sense of moral expansiveness was measured using the Moral Expansiveness Scale short form (Crimston et al., 2018), and their sense of connectedness was measured using the Identification With All Humanity scale (McFarland et al., 2012) and also the Allo-inclusive identity scale (Leary et al., 2008).

Results

We first examined the relationship between awe and moral expansiveness by conducting pearson correlations. We found that zero-order correlations indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between disposition for awe and moral expansiveness, r(292) = .16, p = .007. Further, partial correlations indicated that this relationship remained significant while controlling for demographics (political orientation, religiosity, nationalism, gender) and other positive emotions (e.g. disposition for joy, contentment, pride, love, amusement), r(255) = .12, p = .050.

We then examined the relationship between awe and connectedness, and we conducted pearson correlations between disposition awe and identification with all humanity. We found that zero-order correlations indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between dispositional awe and identification with all humanity, r(292) = .17, p < .001. Further, partial correlations indicated that this relationship remained significant while controlling for demographics and disposition for other positive emotions, r(256) = .16, p = .009.

We next examined the relationship between awe and connectedness beyond the human world by conducting pearson correlations between disposition for awe and allo-inclusive identity. We found that zero-order correlations indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between disposition for awe and allo-inclusive identity, r(292) = .39, p < .001. Further, partial correlations indicated that this relationship remained significant while controlling for demographics and disposition for other positive emotions, r(256) = .26, p < .001.

Implications

The results are consistent with previous findings that have found that awe is associated with higher levels of moral concern for others (e.g. Piff et al., 2015) and a stronger sense of connectedness (e.g. Bai et al., 2017). Moreover, our findings extend on previous work by demonstrating that awe promotes moral concern beyond the human in-group by promoting a sense of moral expansiveness towards out-group humans, animals, plants, and even the broader environment. Further, awe appears to be associated with a stronger sense of connectedness, not just our in-group social collective, but appears to also be related to a broader sense of connectedness to all humanity, all living beings, and even the whole universe. In this sense, awe may play a role in regulating not just the relationships between humans, but also the relationships between humans and the broader universe of all living beings.

However, these results are correlational, and limited to indicating that insofar as those people who say they experience more awe and wonder in their lives, also appear to have larger moral worlds, and a broader sense of connectedness to all-humanity, all living-beings, and the universe at large. It remains to be examined whether these relationships can be extended to the state experiences of awe, and whether awe can promote these effects more generally in people.