Ever stand somewhere and suddenly feel like your brain just hit pause? Like staring up at a massive night sky, watching waves crash, or seeing something so unexpectedly beautiful that you forget whatever you were stressing about a moment ago? That’s awe. And psychologically, it’s doing much more than just giving you the chills.
Awe is one of the more intriguing emotions in psychological science because it sits at the intersection of cognition, perception, and social behavior. It is defined in work by Keltner and Haidt (2003) as an emotional response to perceived vastness that requires a process of “accommodation,” meaning that existing mental frameworks are insufficient and must be updated. In this sense, awe is not simply a positive emotion; it is a cognitive event. It reflects a moment in which the mind is forced to reorganize its understanding of the environment, which helps explain why awe often feels both disorienting and expansive at the same time (Shiota et al., 2007).
One of the most robust findings in the psychology of awe literature is the “small self” effect. When individuals experience awe, they report a diminished focus on the self and an increased sense of being part of something… bigger. Importantly, this is not associated with negative self-evaluation but rather with a shift in perspective. In experimental contexts, participants exposed to awe-inducing stimuli, such as towering natural environments, not only describe themselves as feeling smaller but also demonstrate increased prosocial tendencies (Piff et al., 2015). This suggests that awe may function to tune down self-focused thinking while simultaneously enhancing social connectedness.
Awe also appears to influence time perception. Research by Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker (2012) has shown that individuals who experience awe report a subjective temporal expansion. They feel less hurried, more patient, and more willing to engage in activities that are meaningful. This shift occurs without any objective change in available time, suggesting that awe alters internal time perception rather than external constraints.
In addition to these perceptual and cognitive effects, the psychology of awe has measured behavioral consequences. Experimental studies consistently find that awe increases prosocial behavior, including generosity, helping, and ethical decision-making (Piff et al., 2015). Even brief exposures to awe-inducing stimuli, such as short videos or environmental cues, can produce these effects, and even simple interventions like short “awe walks” have been shown to increase positive emotion and social connection (Sturm et al., 2020). This pattern suggests that awe may serve an adaptive social function by promoting cooperation and reducing self-interest in contexts where group cohesion is beneficial.
There is even emerging evidence that awe is associated with physiological changes. Some studies have linked the experience of awe to lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are biological markers associated with chronic stress and health risk (Stellar et al., 2015). While the causal pathways are still being explored, these findings point to a broader ‘BioPsychoSocial’ role for awe, in which emotional experiences can influence not only cognition and behavior but also physical health.
What distinguishes awe from other positive emotions is that it does not primarily reinforce the self. Emotions such as pride or happiness tend to affirm one’s existing identity and goals, whereas awe disrupts them. By challenging existing mental schemas, awe increases openness to new information and may facilitate learning and cognitive flexibility. This aligns with the idea that awe is fundamentally an “expansion” emotion, one that broadens perception while simultaneously reducing egocentric focus.
Importantly, awe does not require extraordinary circumstances. Although it is often associated with grand natural or artistic experiences, research shows that even brief or recalled moments of awe can produce similar effects (Sturm et al., 2020). This suggests that awe is not a rare phenomenon but rather an accessible psychological state that can be elicited in everyday contexts. The psychology of awe represents a compelling example of how a transient emotional experience can produce wide-ranging effects across cognitive, social, and physiological domains. Awesome!
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” -Albert Einstein
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