Picture standing at the edge of a canyon at dawn, or beneath a tree so tall you have to tip your head all the way back. For a moment, ordinary worries seem to shrink. People often describe that moment as awe, and over the past two decades psychologists have started to study it as carefully as they study anger or joy.
What counts as awe?
In a widely cited 2003 paper, the psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt proposed that awe has two central ingredients. The first is perceived vastness: something is experienced as much larger than you. That can be physical size, but it can also be power, fame, or an idea so big that it is hard to hold. The second is a need for accommodation: the experience does not fit your existing picture of the world, so your mind has to stretch to make room.
This is why awe is not simply “being impressed.” A beautiful but familiar sunset may please you. A piece of music that rearranges your sense of what music can be, or a scientific fact that makes the universe feel stranger, can do something more. Awe can also be unsettling. Storms, disasters and overwhelming displays of power can produce a fearful version, and the same research tradition treats these as part of the picture.
- Something vast appears A landscape, a performance, a person’s courage or an idea seems larger than your usual frame.
- Your mental map is strained The experience does not fit what you expected, creating a need to adjust.
- Attention shifts outward You become less absorbed in your own concerns.
- Understanding adjusts, or it does not Researchers suggest awe can feel enlightening when the stretch succeeds and unsettling when it does not.
Awe and the “small self”
One idea that has drawn attention is the “small self”: the sense that you are one part of something bigger. In a set of studies published in 2015 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Paul Piff and colleagues reported five studies in which awe was linked to more generous or helpful behavior. In one, a large U.S. sample who were more prone to awe shared more raffle tickets with a stranger in a game. In others, participants who watched awe-inspiring footage, or looked up at a grove of tall eucalyptus trees, behaved more helpfully than people in neutral or comparison conditions. The authors argued that awe makes people feel smaller and less self-important, shifting focus toward others.
Other work associated with the awe literature points to humility, a feeling that time is more plentiful, more critical thinking, and less materialism. These are intriguing, but they are findings that arrived relatively recently and need careful reading.
The caveats worth knowing
Psychology has had a hard decade for tidy findings, and awe research shares the same limits as much of the field. Participants are often university students or online volunteers from Western countries. Many measures rely on self-report. Lab awe, produced by a video clip, may differ from the awe of standing in front of a real mountain. Several effects were measured right after the experience, so we know little about how long they last.
There are also signs of mixed results. A conference presentation from a New Zealand and Czech team in 2019 reported that people who had just watched an awe-inspiring nature video spent less time on a boring voluntary task, a result that sits awkwardly with the simple “small self makes you more helpful” story; the team suggested awe’s social effects may unfold over longer periods. A student replication attempt of a related study on awe and humility did not find the expected differences. These examples do not overturn the original work, and a single failed replication tells us little, but they illustrate why the claims deserve measured language.
Awe in an ordinary week
If awe needs vastness and surprise, it might seem reserved for travel and spectacle. Researchers have noted that awe can come from nature, art, music, ideas, and acts of moral courage. A teacher who explains something so clearly that a whole subject opens up can do it. So can the sight of a newborn, a choir, or a stranger who helps without being asked. Everyday awe is usually smaller than the canyon, but it may share the same pattern: attention leaves the self for a moment and returns slightly altered.
That can matter for meaning too. Moments that remind us we belong to something larger often feed the sense of significance described in why humans search for meaning. They can also change how an ordinary day looks, which connects to why time seems to speed up when novelty fades. Novelty and attention play a role in both.
It is worth being cautious about turning awe into a product. Trying to force a profound feeling can backfire, and awe is not a cure for hardship. It is better seen as one of several ways people reconnect with the world beyond their own to-do lists.
