Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior

Paul K. Piff

University of California, Irvine

Pia Dietze

New York University

Matthew Feinberg

University of Toronto

Daniel M. Stancato and Dacher Keltner

University of California, Berkeley

Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference.

Guided by conceptual analyses of awe as a collective emotion, across 5 studies (N ⫽ 2,078) we tested

the hypothesis that awe can result in a diminishment of the individual self and its concerns, and increase

prosocial behavior. In a representative national sample (Study 1), dispositional tendencies to experience

awe predicted greater generosity in an economic game above and beyond other prosocial emotions (e.g.,

compassion). In follow-up experiments, inductions of awe (relative to various control states) increased

ethical decision-making (Study 2), generosity (Study 3), and prosocial values (Study 4). Finally, a

naturalistic induction of awe in which participants stood in a grove of towering trees enhanced prosocial

helping behavior and decreased entitlement compared to participants in a control condition (Study 5).

Mediational data demonstrate that the effects of awe on prosociality are explained, in part, by feelings

of a small self. These findings indicate that awe may help situate individuals within broader social

contexts and enhance collective concern.

Keywords: awe, prosocial behavior, altruism, helping, small self

The saintly character is the character for which spiritual emotions

are the habitual center of the personal energy....They are these:

A feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world’s selfish

little interests; and a conviction, not merely intellectual, but as it

were sensible, of the existence of an Ideal Power....Animmense

elation and freedom, as the outlines of the confining selfhood melt

down....Ashifting of the emotional center toward loving and

harmonious affections...[which brings] increase of charity,

tenderness for fellow-creatures. (James, 1902/1985, pp. 219–221)

Calvin: Look at all the stars! The universe just goes out forever and ever!

Hobbes: It kind of makes you wonder why man considers himself

such a big screaming deal. (Watterson, 2005, Vol. 3, p. 370)

Awe is a cherished and transformative experience that is at the

center of many collective processes (Keltner & Haidt, 2003).

Firsthand accounts of awe felt during experiences with religion

and spirituality, nature, art, and music often center upon two

themes: the feeling of being diminished in the presence of some-

thing greater than the self, and the motivation to be good to others

(Emerson, 1836/1982; James, 1902/1985; Keltner & Haidt, 2003).

From one perspective, this is surprising. Awe is an emotional

response to perceptually vast stimuli that defy one’s accustomed

frame of reference in some domain (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Shiota,

Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). People typically experience awe in

response to asocial stimuli like natural wonders, panoramic views,

and beautiful art. Why, then, would awe produce the sense of a

small self and more prosocial tendencies?

One answer to this question is found in treatments of awe as a

collective emotion (e.g., Durkheim, 1887/1972; Horberg, Oveis, &

Keltner, 2011; Keltner & Haidt, 1999, 2003; Spears et al., 2011).

Within these analyses, it is claimed that awe produces specific

cognitive and behavioral tendencies that enable individuals to fold

into collaborative social groups, and engage in collective action.

Action within collectives, including collaboration, cooperation,

and coaction, requires a diminished emphasis on the self and its

interests and a shift to attending to the larger entities one is a part

of (e.g., small groups, social collectives, and humanity). Enhanced

prosocial tendencies—inclinations to share, care, and assist—fur-

ther enable individuals to function more effectively within social

collectives (de Waal, 2008; Keltner, Kogan, Piff, & Saturn, 2014;

Nowak, 2006; Sober & Wilson, 1998). Experiences of awe, this

reasoning holds, enable individuals to be effective members of

social collectives, through shifts in attention to the self and through

prosocial behavior. It is perhaps for this reason that awe is central

to experiences in religion, spirituality, and political engagement,

all processes in which the individual engages in collective action

Paul K. Piff, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, Uni-

versity of California, Irvine; Pia Dietze, Department of Psychology,

New York University; Matthew Feinberg, Rotman School of Manage-

ment, University of Toronto; Daniel M. Stancato and Dacher Keltner,

Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.

We thank Yasmin Abbaszadeh, Christian Cazares, David Chen, Liana

Gheorma, Millie Huckabee, Xiaoshan Li, Maia Menschik, Sally Ng, Mat-

thew Nguyen, Oswaldo Rosales, Koji Takahashi, Nina Tian, and Stephanie

Yu for their invaluable help with data collection. We would also like to

thank E. J. Horberg, whose insights significantly strengthened this work.

This research was supported in part by a grant from the John Templeton

Foundation (24288) awarded to Dacher Keltner.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paul K.

Piff, 4554 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697-

7050. E-mail: [email protected]

2015, Vol. 108, No. 6, 883–899 0022-3514/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018

883

and derives a more acute sense of collective identity (e.g., Shariff

& Norenzayan, 2007).

Guided by this theorizing, in the current research we investigate

the influence of awe on different forms of prosociality. We predict

that the experience of awe will increase prosocial behavior, and

that these effects will be driven by what we refer to as the “small

self”—a relatively diminished sense of self (i.e., feeling one’s

being and goals to be less significant) vis-a

-vis something deemed

vaster than the individual.

In pursuing this line of inquiry, we

provide the first experimental evidence that documents the effects

of awe upon prosocial tendencies and that illuminates the mech-

anism underlying these effects, which to date have only been the

subject of theoretical speculation.

Awe, Vastness, Accommodation, and

the Small Self

Social relationships are central to social life and vital to human

survival (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; House, Landis, & Um-

berson, 1988; Piff, Stancato, Martinez, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012;

Sober & Wilson, 1998). Decisions about where, when, and with

whom to act in a prosocial fashion are critical to the formation and

maintenance of relationships. On the one hand, prosocial behavior

can enable social ties that are reciprocal and mutually beneficial

(Keltner et al., 2014). On the other hand, prosocial behavior incurs

many costs, and those who act prosocially risk their sacrifices

being unreciprocated or even exploited.

This cost-benefit analysis of prosociality has prompted studies

of the ways in which emotions guide how individuals negotiate

this trade-off, which is sometimes referred to as the “trust prob-

lem” or the “commitment problem” (e.g., Frank, 1988). Research

finds that what might be called more social emotions like gratitude,

love, moral elevation, and compassion can prompt behaviors that

benefit others, often at an expense to oneself (e.g., Bartlett &

DeSteno, 2006; DeSteno, Bartlett, Baumann, Williams, & Dick-

ens, 2010; Gonzaga, Keltner, Londahl, & Smith, 2001; Schnall,

Roper, & Fessler, 2010; Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, & Keltner,

2010). Next to nothing is known about how awe, which is typically

elicited by information-rich stimuli like panoramic nature views

instead of social stimuli (Shiota et al., 2007), can likewise influ-

ence prosocial tendencies so vital to trust and commitment.

Awe involves positively valenced feelings of wonder and

amazement. Awe arises via appraisals of stimuli that are vast, that

transcend current frames of reference, and that require new sche-

mata to accommodate what is being perceived (Keltner & Haidt,

2003). Although many stimuli can inspire awe, from beautiful

buildings to elegant equations, the prototypical awe experience, at

least in Western cultures, involves encounters with natural phe-

nomena that are immense in size, scope, or complexity (e.g., the

night sky, the ocean; Shiota, Campos, & Keltner, 2003; Shiota et

al., 2007). However elicited, experiences of awe are unified by a

core theme: perceptions of vastness that dramatically expand the

observer’s usual frame of reference in some dimension or domain

(Shiota et al., 2007).

Past studies have begun to document the influences of awe on

social cognition, effects that can be understood in terms of how

awe is based in perceived vastness that challenges one’s normal

frame of reference. For example, awe can cause people to feel they

have more available time, which can enhance their well-being

(Rudd et al., 2012). Some experiences of awe may also trigger a

sense of uncertainty and motivate people to seek out order—for

example, by perceiving intentionality in randomness (Valdesolo &

Graham, 2014).

Awe has also been associated with a sense that one is a part of

something larger than oneself, most typically larger categories

such as a community, a culture, the human species, or nature.

Shiota and colleagues (2007) found that people high in disposi-

tional awe (but not pride or joy) were less likely to define them-

selves using individuated terms such as “special” or “one-of-a-

kind” and more likely to emphasize their membership in larger

categories, for example by describing themselves as “a person” or

“an inhabitant of the Earth.” An induction of awe in which par-

ticipants stood next to a full-sized replica of a Tyrannosaurus Rex

skeleton—that elicited feelings of awe but not other positive

emotions—similarly expanded participants’ self-definitions to in-

clude more universal social categories (Shiota et al., 2007). In a

similar vein, Van Cappellen and Saroglou (2012) found that elic-

iting awe via a nature video caused participants to feel more

connected to people in general on the Inclusion of the Other in the

Self Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992).

Most relevant to our theorizing, awe appears to also trigger an

almost metaphorical sense of smallness of the self. In one study,

participants who recalled an experience of awe recounted feeling

small relative to the environment (Campos, Shiota, Keltner,

Gonzaga, & Goetz, 2013). In other research, participants primed to

recall a past personal experience of awe reported perceptions of

something greater than themselves, feeling smaller and less sig-

nificant, and a sense that their attention was less focused on

personal day-to-day concerns (Shiota et al., 2007).

Taken to-

gether, these studies suggest that awe directs attention to entities

vaster than the self and more collective dimensions of personal

identity, and reduces the significance the individual attaches to

personal concerns and goals. We note, though, that much of this

evidence involves narrative data in which the individual recalls

salient themes of a past experience of awe; clearly, more experi-

mental work is needed to show that awe causes such shifts in

self-representation.

These lines of research on awe, self-categorization, and feelings

of smallness indicate that awe can significantly alter the self-

concept, in ways that reflect a shift in attention toward larger

entities and diminishment of the individual self—a shift that is

vital to the collaboration and cooperation required of social groups

(e.g., Keltner et al., 2014; Nowak, 2006; Sober & Wilson, 1998).

Guided by these results and our conceptual analysis, we examine

how awe, beyond influencing self-construal, also influences

whether individuals behave in ways that prioritize the self versus

others in the social environment. We test the overarching hypoth-

“Small self” may have many instantiations that one would derive from

the study of the self, including reduced self-awareness, less self-conscious

emotions, and decreased emphasis given to self-relevant goals. Here we

conceptualize the small self as a relative diminishment of the individual

self and its interests vis-a

-vis something perceived to be more vast and

powerful than oneself.

We conceptualize these self-related appraisals as related to but distinct

from perceptions of vastness per se, which refer to the sense that one has

encountered something immense in size, scope, number, or complexity and

do not directly or necessarily implicate the self.

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PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

esis that awe should enhance prosociality by causing people to be

more willing to forego self-interest in favor of others’ welfare.

Awe and Prosocial Behavior

Although there is no direct evidence linking awe to prosocial

behavior, several lines of research lend credence to our hypothesis

that awe will increase prosocial tendencies via a sense of a small

self. A first is a literature indicating that processes that diminish

attention to the individual self and its interests can increase proso-

cial tendencies. In one study, individuals who reported decreased

feelings of self-importance donated more to a collective resource

and were more selfless in their relationships (Campbell, Bonacci,

Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004). Similarly, narcissism—a trait

reflecting an inflated evaluation of the self—is associated with a

disregard for others’ needs (McGregor, Nail, Kocalar, & Haji,

2013; Wink, 1991). In the study of values, self-transcendence

values, which emphasize diminished self-importance and in-

creased attention to others and nature, are positively related to

prosocial tendencies and empathy; self-enhancement values, which

include an increased valuation of power and achievement, corre-

late negatively with these outcomes (Boer & Fischer, 2013; Ca-

prara, Alessandri, & Eisenberg, 2012). Finally, those individuals

who report feeling part of a greater entity, such as humanity,

nature, or a spiritual force tend to report increased gratitude and

empathy—emotions tightly linked to prosociality (McCullough,

Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). Together, these findings indicate that

placing less significance on the self and self-interest vis-a

-vis

something vaster than the self can increase prosociality. To the

extent that awe triggers feelings that one’s being and goals are less

significant relative to something vaster than the self, it should also

increase prosocial tendencies.

A second literature that sets the stage for our hypothesis in-

volves studies of the social effects of nature—a primary elicitor of

awe (e.g., Davis & Gatersleben, 2013; Griskevicius, Shiota, &

Neufeld, 2010; Shiota et al., 2007). Nature broadly refers to areas,

from parks to pristine wilderness, containing elements of living

systems, such as plants and nonhuman animals (Bratman, Hamil-

ton, & Daily, 2012). Weinstein, Przybylski, and Ryan (2009)

found that exposure to nature versus urban environments can

differentially influence sociality, as evident in the self-reported

importance people place on social relationships and their levels of

generosity. In investigations in this realm, participants behaved

more generously when in a room with plants as opposed to a

plant-free room (Weinstein et al., 2009). After being exposed to

more beautiful as opposed to less beautiful nature, participants

offered more help to an experimenter by folding Japanese paper

cranes for victims of a tsunami, tendencies that were driven by

heightened positive affect (Zhang, Piff, Iyer, Koleva, & Keltner,

2014). Our research diverges from this prior work in several

critical ways, by focusing on awe rather than on nature or beauty,

by ascertaining whether nonnature-based awe triggers prosociality,

and by disentangling these effects from other positive emotions

and more general positive mood (for distinctions between awe and

beauty, see Burke, 1757/1990; Cohen, Gruber, & Keltner, 2010;

Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Nonetheless, these prior studies indicate

that experiences of awe toward nature may increase prosocial

behavior.

Our conceptual analysis of awe as well as the empirical findings

we have just described lay the groundwork for this investigation.

None of the studies we have reviewed offer direct evidence for

how experiences of awe increase prosocial tendencies. To test this

possibility, awe needs to be both measured and manipulated, and

contrasted with other prosocial emotions, in controlled interactions

in which prosocial behavior is directly assessed. These consider-

ations guided the present investigation.

The Present Research

Following others, we reason that the experience of awe is

self-diminishing vis-a

-vis something vaster than the individual,

and reduces emphasis on the desires and concerns of the self (e.g.,

Campos et al., 2013; Shiota et al., 2007). We hypothesize that the

experience of awe will trigger a sense of a small self and, in turn,

lead to greater prosocial behavior. The five studies reported here

directly examined this hypothesis, testing the effects of awe upon

several kinds of prosociality, including generosity, helping, and

ethicality. In Study 1, we tested whether dispositional (or trait)

tendencies to experience awe predicted generosity in an economic

game. In follow-up experiments, we investigated whether manip-

ulations of awe increased ethical decision-making (Study 2), gen-

erosity (Study 3), and prosocial values (Study 4), and whether a

sense of a small self mediated these effects. Finally, in Study 5, we

immersed participants in an awe-inspiring environment to test its

effects on entitlement, ethical decision-making, and prosocial

helping behavior. In light of recent concerns about biases in

college samples (e.g., Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), we

took pains to ensure that our studies were demographically diverse,

incorporating nationally representative and online samples, as well

as student samples. Moreover, we captured the experience of awe

at the trait and state level, and through varied manipulations of

awe, including narrative recall, compelling videos, and in vivo

experience amid tall trees. Our investigation also examined nature-

related awe and awe produced by nonnature stimuli.

We also tested alternative explanations of the hypothesized

association between awe and prosociality. Most importantly, pos-

itive emotions can lead to increases in prosocial behavior (e.g.,

George & Brief, 1992; Isen, 1987; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener,

2005). This empirical literature raises the question of whether the

hypothesized influences of awe upon prosociality are unique to

awe or simply part of the more general tendency for positive states

to increase prosociality. In light of this concern, in Study 1 we

controlled for other positive prosocial states (e.g., love, compas-

sion), in Study 2 we pitted awe against pride, in Study 3 we pitted

awe against amusement, and in Study 4 we pitted a negative

induction of awe against a positive one, all means by which we

sought to establish the specific contribution of awe to prosociality.

Study 1: Dispositional Levels of Awe Predict

Generosity in an Economic Game

In Study 1 we tested whether awe is associated with increased

prosocial behavior in a nationally representative sample. Partici-

pants reported their dispositional tendencies to experience several

distinct positive emotions, including awe (Shiota, Keltner, & John,

2006; Stellar, Manzo, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012). Participants also

completed a version of the “dictator game”—a widely used single

885

AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

trial economic game that assesses prosocial sharing (Forsythe,

Horowitz, Savin, & Sefton, 1994), and is predictive of “real world”

prosociality (e.g., returning a misdirected letter containing money;

Benz & Meier, 2008; Franzen & Pointner, 2013; Stoop, 2014).

Measuring dispositional tendencies to experience positive emo-

tions other than awe, such as love and compassion, allowed us to

ascertain the unique contribution of awe to prosocial behavior.

Method

Participants. There were 1,519 participants (752 male, 767

female) who were drawn from a Knowledge Networks nationally

representative panel and paid to complete the study (see Skitka &

Sargis, 2006). Participants ranged in age from 24 to 93 years (M ⫽

50.19, SD ⫽ 16.72). Seventy-two percent were European Ameri-

can, 12% were Latino/a, 10% were African American, 2% iden-

tified as mixed race, and 4% indicated “other.” Participants rep-

resented all 50 U.S. states with ⬃11% living in California, 8% in

Texas, 6% in Florida, 6% in New York, and 5% in Pennsylvania,

and the remaining states each representing under 5% of the sample.

Materials and procedure. As part of a larger survey exam-

ining individual differences in morality (http://kenan.ethics.duke

.edu/attitudes/resources/measuring-morality), participants com-

pleted a series of demographic questions. Participants also

completed an abbreviated version of the revised Dispositional

Positive Emotions Scale, a well-validated measure of individual

differences in dispositional tendencies to experience seven distinct

positive emotions, including awe (DPES-r; Shiota et al., 2006).

The questionnaire contained seven subscales, each consisting of

three items, to assess amusement (e.g., “There is a lot of humor in

my life”; ␣⫽.85; M ⫽ 5.05, SD ⫽ 1.13), awe (e.g., “I often feel

awe”; ␣⫽.83; M ⫽ 4.62, SD ⫽ 1.16), compassion (e.g., “I am a

very compassionate person”; ␣⫽.78; M ⫽ 5.27, SD ⫽ 1.02),

contentment (e.g., “When I think about my life I experience a deep

feeling of contentment”; ␣⫽.83; M ⫽ 5.02, SD ⫽ 1.10), enthu-

siasm (e.g., “I get great pleasure from pursuing my goals”; ␣⫽

.63; M ⫽ 5.27, SD ⫽ .90), love (e.g., “I grow to love people who

are kind to me”; ␣⫽.77; M ⫽ 5.24, SD ⫽ .97), and pride (“It feels

good to know that people look up to me”; ␣⫽.78; M ⫽ 5.50,

SD ⫽ .89). Participants responded to each item on a scale ranging

from 1 (strongly disagree)to7(strongly agree). Participants could

also select ⫺1 (refuse to answer); 13 participants (less than 1%)

selected this response and their data were treated as missing.

Participants were then randomly assigned to complete one of

two versions of the dictator game (e.g., Bolton, Katok, & Zwick,

1998). For both versions, participants learned that they would play

as a “decider” in a distribution task. As deciders, participants were

told they would receive 10 raffle tickets that were theirs to keep.

Depending on the version, these 10 raffle tickets were each worth

one entry into a drawing for either $10 or $500. Participants in

both conditions then decided how many of the 10 raffle tickets, if

any, they wanted to share with another participant they had been

paired with that had been randomly assigned to the role of a

“receiver,” who did not have any raffle tickets to start with and

would receive any tickets they decided to transfer to him or her.

Participants could also select ⫺1 (refuse to answer); 21 partici-

pants (1.4%) chose this response and their data were treated as

missing. The average number of tickets given to the partner across

both dictator games was M ⫽ 4.24 (SD ⫽ 2.49)—a level of

generosity comparable with that observed in similar studies (e.g.,

Fowler & Kam, 2007; Piff et al., 2010). Upon conclusion of the

study, participants were entered into the raffle on the basis of the

number of tickets they had kept and winners were selected.

Results and Discussion

Is dispositional awe associated with increased generosity?

We first tested the zero-order correlations between each of the

DPES-r subscales and dictator game giving. These correlations are

displayed in Table 1. As the table clearly shows, increased ten-

dencies to experience awe were positively and significantly asso-

ciated with generosity in both the $10 and $500 versions of the

dictator game as well as with a composite of the two (to which

each participant contributed one score). Other emotions were also

associated with generosity, including compassion and love.

Does awe predict generosity over and above other positive

emotions? We next tested whether the positive correlation be-

tween awe and generosity might be confounded by other variables.

For instance, this relationship could be accounted for by the

overlap between awe and other positive emotions or by a demo-

graphic variable (e.g., age, gender) that might covary with both

awe and generosity. We tested this in the context of a regression

analysis in which we examined the association between awe and

generosity while controlling for each of the other positive emotion

subscales, as well as age, gender (1 ⫽ male, 2 ⫽ female), and

ethnicity (0 ⫽ non-White, 1 ⫽ White). We present the results of

these regression analyses in Table 2. As Table 2 shows, individual

differences in dispositional awe tended to predict prosocial giving

in the dictator game even when controlling for other positive

emotions and demographic variables. Of interest to the authors,

though in the expected direction, awe was not a statistically sig-

nificant predictor of giving in the $10 raffle. However, awe did

significantly predict increased generosity in the higher payoff $500

raffle. Considering that the greater stakes of the second raffle may

outweigh social desirability or impression management concerns,

behavior in this raffle may represent a more authentic type of

prosociality (see also Andersen, Ertaç, Gneezy, Hoffman, & List,

2011). Nonetheless, when giving in the $10 and $500 dictator

games were combined into a single measure of generosity, shown

in the rightmost column of Table 2, awe was a significant predic-

tor. It is important to note that other emotions were also indepen-

Table 1

Zero-Order Correlations Between Subscales of DPES-R and

Generosity in the $10- and $500-Lottery Payout Versions of the

Dictator Game as Well as the Two Games Combined

$10 dictator

game

$500 dictator

game Combined

Amusement 0.019 0.018 .018

Awe 0.099

ⴱⴱ

0.151

ⴱⴱⴱ

.123

ⴱⴱⴱ

Compassion 0.132

ⴱⴱⴱ

0.116

ⴱⴱ

.119

ⴱⴱⴱ

Contentment 0.100

ⴱⴱ

0.148

ⴱⴱⴱ

.123

ⴱⴱⴱ

Enthusiasm 0.029 0.003 .014

Love 0.072

ⴱ

0.063 .064

ⴱ

Pride 0.037 ⫺0.016 .010

Note. DPES-r ⫽ Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05.

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01.

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

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PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

dently associated with generosity (such as compassion and con-

tentment), suggesting unique pathways from these emotions to

prosocial behavior.

These results support our hypothesis that awe is associated with

increased prosociality. Though the size of this effect was modest,

it held when controlling for dispositional tendencies to experience

other positive emotions, including love and compassion—emo-

tions that have well-documented and robust influences on proso-

cial responding (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Kogan et al., 2010).

Moreover, these findings emerged in a demographically diverse

sample of participants, who ranged considerably in geography,

age, and ethnicity, indicating that the association between awe and

prosociality may be generalizable. However, the correlational na-

ture of the current results constrains their interpretability. Thus, in

Studies 2 through 5 we turn our focus to experimental inductions

of awe so as to test their causal effects on prosocial behavior.

Study 2: Awe Increases Ethicality via Feelings of a

Small Self

In Study 2, we experimentally induced awe and control states

(pride, neutral affect) by having participants recall a prototypical

experience of a target emotion—a well-validated technique for

inducing specific emotions (e.g., Griskevicius et al., 2010; Piff,

Martinez, & Keltner, 2012). Contrasting the effects of awe, which

is itself a positive emotion, with those of a different positive

emotion, pride, allowed us to test the specific effects of awe above

and beyond general positivity. We chose pride as a comparison for

several reasons. Although both emotions are positive and arousing,

awe differs from pride in terms of its elicitors and self-related

appraisals: whereas awe is externally elicited (e.g., triggered by

natural vistas, novel art) and diminishes the self, pride is internally

focused on personal accomplishment or abilities and may lead to

self-enhancement (e.g., Tracy & Robins, 2004). Thus, awe and

pride implicate the self-concept in contrasting ways, which may

lead to downstream differences in prosociality. Moreover, to the

extent that pride enhances prosociality, as some evidence suggests,

it does so by triggering achievement motivations (e.g., Cheng,

Tracy, & Henrich, 2010; Tracy & Robins, 2004), suggesting a

unique pathway that is distinct from the small self mechanism we

propose and test as a mediator of the effects of awe on prosociality.

In light of these considerations, and given that pride is commonly

used as a positive emotion with which to contrast the effects of

awe (Shiota et al., 2007; Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012), we

selected pride as our comparison positive emotion.

We also extended our prior findings by testing the influence of

awe on a different facet of prosociality: ethical-decision making.

Specifically, we assessed participants’ willingness to behave in

ways that prioritize self-interest over collective norms of conduct

and the interests of others (Detert, Treviño, & Sweitzer, 2008; Piff,

Stancato, Côté, Mendoza-Denton, & Keltner, 2012). Finally, we

examined why awe might underlie ethicality by assessing our

hypothesized mediator: the small self.

Method

Participants. Seventy-five adults completed an online exper-

iment via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Demographics were col-

lected in a second wave two days after the initial experiment. Of

the participants who reported their demographics, 54.3% were

male and 45.7% were female (age 18–51, M ⫽ 31.01, SD ⫽ 9.37).

Seventy-eight percent of participants were European American,

7% were Asian American, and the remaining 15% were African

American, Latino/a, Native American, or other ethnicity.

Materials and procedure. After giving consent, partici-

pants were randomly assigned to one of three narrative recall

conditions that induced specific emotions by having partici-

pants recall and write about a time when they were in a situation

that is a prototypical elicitor of the target emotion. We con-

trasted an awe induction with both a neutral induction and a

pride induction. The specific instructions that participants re-

ceived in each emotion condition are below (adapted from

Griskevicius et al., 2010).

Awe: Please take a few minutes to think about a particular time, fairly

recently, when you encountered a natural scene that caused you to feel

awe. This might have been a sunset, a view from a high place, or any

other time you were in a natural setting that you felt was beautiful.

Pride: Please take a few minutes to think about a particular time, fairly

recently, when you felt pride. This might have been being accepted to

a university, winning an event or competition, or any other time that

you achieved a personal accomplishment.

Table 2

Predicting Prosocial Giving From Age, Gender (1 ⫽ Male, 2 ⫽ Female), Ethnicity

(0 ⫽ Non-White, 1 ⫽ White), and All Positive Emotion Subscales of DPES-r

$10 dictator game $500 dictator game Combined

Age 0.009 (0.064) 0.006 (0.038) 0.009 (0.058)

ⴱ

Gender 0.093 (0.019) 0.183 (0.037) 0.106 (0.021)

Ethnicity ⫺0.369 (⫺0.068) 0.340 (0.061) ⫺0.051 (⫺0.009)

Amusement ⫺0.040 (⫺0.019) ⫺0.204 (⫺0.094)

ⴱ

⫺0.109 (⫺0.050)

ⴱ

Awe 0.096 (0.046) 0.238 (0.111)

ⴱ

0.167 (0.078)

ⴱ

Compassion 0.301 (0.126)

ⴱ

0.264 (0.107)

†

0.260 (0.107)

ⴱⴱ

Contentment 0.088 (0.039) 0.328 (0.146)

ⴱⴱ

0.204 (0.090)

ⴱ

Enthusiasm ⫺0.096 (⫺0.034) ⫺0.120 (⫺0.045) ⫺0.125 (⫺0.045)

Love 0.032 (0.013) 0.089 (0.034) 0.067 (0.026)

Pride ⫺0.132 (⫺0.049) ⫺0.419 (⫺0.148)

ⴱⴱ

⫺0.249 (⫺0.089)

ⴱ

Note. Unstandardized and standardized regression weights (in parentheses) are shown. DPES-r ⫽ Disposi-

tional Positive Emotions Scale.

†

p ⫽ .05.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05.

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01.

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

887

AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Neutral: Please take a few minutes to think about something you did

fairly recently. This might have been riding a bike, studying for a test,

or any other thing that happened during your day.

All participants were then asked to write at least five sentences

describing the experience, their accompanying emotions, and what

they were thinking about during the experience, providing as much

detail as they can. In a poststudy review of the written narratives,

we ensured that all participants followed the instructions.

To verify that the emotion manipulations elicited the intended

emotional states, we pretested the three manipulations with a

separate sample of 46 participants. Each participant underwent one

of the three writing tasks described above. After describing the

experience, participants reported the extent to which they experi-

enced several different states using single items (1 ⫽ not at all,

7 ⫽ extremely): Anger, Awe, Disgust, Fear, Pride, Sadness, and

Happiness (to index general positivity). These results are presented

in the leftmost columns of Table 3. The awe condition produced

greater levels of awe than the pride and neutral conditions, whereas

the pride condition produced higher levels of pride than the awe

and neutral conditions. There were no differences in anger, disgust,

or fear across conditions. Of interest to the authors, the awe

condition produced lower levels of sadness than the neutral con-

dition but not compared with the pride condition; however, an

inspection of the means shows that these differences were driven

by slightly elevated sadness in the neutral condition, and that

sadness was nevertheless low in all conditions. Finally, general

positivity (i.e., happiness) varied by condition, such that our awe

and pride conditions produced significantly higher levels of hap-

piness than our neutral control condition, but they did not differ

from one another. These analyses suggest that the awe and pride

conditions induced our target emotions but not other emotions, and

they did not differ from one another in terms of general positivity.

Following the writing task, participants rated their agreement

with a statement concerning the extent to which they felt “the

presence of something greater than myself” (1 ⫽ not at all true,

7 ⫽ very true; M ⫽ 3.80, SD ⫽ 1.59). This item captures the

general construct of the small self by assessing perceptions of

something more vast and powerful than the individual (Shiota

et al., 2007).

To minimize potential demand characteristics, participants were

then informed that they would complete an unrelated study of their

beliefs about themselves and the world, consisting of several filler

tasks, followed by our measure of ethical decision-making (Detert

et al., 2008). Participants were presented with eight hypothetical

scenarios each describing a different self-interested act that vio-

lates accepted moral norms or standards of behavior. One of the

scenarios reads, “You’ve waited in line for 10 min to buy a coffee

and muffin at Starbucks. When you’re a couple of blocks away,

you realize that the clerk gave you change for $20 rather than for

the $10 you gave him. You savor your coffee, muffin, and free

$10.” For each of these scenarios, participants were asked to rate

how likely it would be that she or he would engage in the behavior

described on a 7-point Likert scale (1 ⫽ not at all likely, 7 ⫽

highly likely). Thus, this measure assesses participants’ willingness

to prioritize self-interest over collective norms and others’ inter-

ests. Responses to the eight scenarios were reverse scored,

summed, and averaged to index ethical decision-making (M ⫽

3.89, SD ⫽ 1.16, ␣⫽.74). This measure of ethical decision-

Table 3

Mean Scores for Self-Reported Emotional States in Pilot Studies for Studies 2, 3, 4, and 5 (SDs in Parentheses)

Study 2 (narrative recall) conditions Study 3 (videos) conditions Study 4 (videos) conditions

Study 5 (in-vivo)

conditions

Awe

(N ⫽ 17)

Pride

(N ⫽ 16)

Control

(N ⫽ 13)

Awe

(N ⫽ 14)

Amusement

(N ⫽ 15)

Control

(N ⫽ 16)

Negative

(N ⫽ 14)

Nonnature

(N ⫽ 16)

Control

(N ⫽ 15)

Trees

(N ⫽ 25)

Building

(N ⫽ 24)

Amusement — — — 3.43 (2.07)

5.67 (1.40)

a,c

3.00 (1.97)

— — — 4.44 (1.64) 4.25 (1.85)

Anger 1.29 (0.96) 1.44 (1.50) 1.92 (1.32) 1.50 (1.09) 1.27 (0.59) 1.06 (0.25)

1.79 (1.63) 1.38 (1.03) 1.13 (0.52) 1.00 (0.00)

ⴱ

1.38 (0.58)

Anxiety ——————3.21 (2.29)

b,c

1.63 (1.46)

1.20 (0.78)

——

Awe 6.24 (1.09)

b,c

3.75 (2.11)

2.77 (1.83)

5.14 (2.03)

b,c

2.93 (1.53)

2.56 (2.00)

5.64 (1.60)

5.38 (1.86)

1.93 (1.82)

a,b

5.40 (1.35)

ⴱ

2.42 (1.41)

Disgust 1.35 (1.22) 1.00 (0.00) 1.62 (1.19) 1.29 (0.83) 1.40 (1.06) 1.06 (0.25) 1.79 (1.63) 1.50 (1.41) 1.00 (0.00) 1.28 (0.74) 1.21 (0.51)

Fear 1.29 (0.96) 1.06 (0.25) 1.38 (0.77) 1.57 (1.16) 1.60 (1.35) 1.00 (0.00) 3.43 (2.17)

b,c

1.44 (1.21)

1.47 (1.55)

1.32 (0.69) 1.26 (0.54)

Nervousness ——————3.21 (2.12)

b,c

1.38 (1.03)

1.13 (0.52)

——

Pride 3.88 (1.80)

6.19 (1.22)

a,c

4.00 (2.04)

————————

Sadness 1.13 (0.34)

1.31 (0.70) 2.15 (1.91)

1.71 (1.27) 1.27 (0.59) 1.06 (0.25) 2.71 (1.90)

1.75 (1.65) 1.00 (0.00)

1.52 (1.16) 1.83 (0.92)

Happiness 5.76 (1.56)

6.50 (0.73)

3.69 (2.10)

a,b

5.00 (1.57)

5.00 (1.81)

2.94 (2.02)

a,b

2.29 (1.68)

5.19 (1.42)

a,c

3.20 (2.08)

5.12 (1.42)

ⴱ

3.88 (1.54)

Note. All responses were made using single items and 7-point scales, with higher values indicating greater emotion intensity. For Study 2:

These means are significantly different from those in the

awe induction condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the pride induction condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the control

condition (p ⬍ .05). For Study 3:

These means are significantly different from those in the awe induction condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the amusement

induction condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the control condition (p ⬍ .05). For Study 4:

These means are significantly different from those in the negative

awe condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the non nature-based awe condition (p ⬍ .05);

These means are significantly different from those in the control condition

(p ⬍ .05). For Study 5: Asterisks indicate significant differences from the control condition (p ⬍ .05).

888

PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

making has been validated extensively in past research. For in-

stance, Detert et al. (2008) found that individuals with higher

scores on the measure were more likely to keep $8 that they were

mailed, ostensibly by mistake, for completing a survey that they

had not completed, relative to those with lower scores. After

completing the assessment of ethical decision-making, participants

were thanked and debriefed.

Results and Discussion

Does awe influence the small self? We first examined the

influence of emotion condition on the small self. A one-way

analysis of variance (ANOVA) yielded a significant pattern of

differences across conditions, F(2, 68) ⫽ 6.21, p ⫽ .003. We next

conducted planned comparisons to test whether small self ratings

were significantly higher in the awe condition (M ⫽ 5.27, SD ⫽

1.95), relative to the pride (M ⫽ 3.27, SD ⫽ 2.14) and neutral

conditions (M ⫽ 4.11, SD ⫽ 2.08). Two orthogonal contrasts were

used (paralleling Horberg, Kraus, & Keltner, 2013). The first

contrast (“awe contrast”) compares the awe condition to the neu-

tral and pride conditions (coded as awe ⫽ 2, neutral ⫽⫺1,

pride ⫽⫺1) and tests whether awe heightens perceptions of a

small self. The second contrast (“control contrast”) tested the

residual difference between the neutral and pride conditions

(coded as awe ⫽ 0, neutral ⫽ 1, pride ⫽⫺1). As expected, the

awe contrast was significant, F(1, 68) ⫽ 10.30, p ⫽ .002, but the

control contrast was not, F(1, 68) ⫽ 1.69, p ⫽ .20. The awe

induction increased small self ratings compared with the pride and

neutral inductions.

Do awe and pride influence ethical decision-making in dif-

ferent ways? We next tested whether emotion condition influ-

enced ethicality. A one-way ANOVA showed marginally signifi-

cant differences in ethical decision-making across emotion

conditions, F(2, 68) ⫽ 2.73, p ⫽ .073. Turning to our central

analysis, we used the orthogonal contrasts described above to test

whether ethical decision-making was higher in the awe condition

(M ⫽ 4.24, SD ⫽ 1.02) than in the pride (M ⫽ 3.60, SD ⫽ 1.01)

or neutral conditions (M ⫽ 3.60, SD ⫽ 1.43). As expected, the awe

contrast was significant, F(1, 68) ⫽ 5.44, p ⫽ .023, but the control

contrast was not F(1,

68) ⫽ 0.00, p ⫽ .99. The awe condition

increased ethicality relative to the pride and neutral control con-

ditions.

Mediation analysis. As reported above, the awe condition led

to significant increases in small self ratings and ethical decision-

making. Moreover, the small self was positively associated with

ethicality, r ⫽ .27, p ⫽ .017. Thus, we performed a mediation

analysis to test whether the awe induction increased ethicality via

the small self. Figure 1 illustrates the mediation model and pro-

vides path coefficients. As shown, the positive association between

the awe induction (in contrast to the pride and neutral inductions)

and ethical decision-making dropped to nonsignificant when feel-

ings of a small self were included in the model. We tested the

proposed mediating effect using a bootstrapping procedure for

mediator models recommended by Preacher and Hayes (2004,

2008). We conducted this analysis with the PROCESS macro for

SPSS (Hayes, 2013) using 10,000 bootstrap samples. This tech-

nique yielded a 95% bias-corrected confidence interval that did not

include zero (.01 to .19), suggesting that the small self mediated

the effect of the awe induction on ethical decision-making.

Study 2 provides experimental evidence that awe is specifically

related to prosociality. Reminding participants of a time when they

experienced awe, relative to pride or a neutral condition, increased

their tendencies to endorse ethical decisions across a variety of

scenarios. The awe induction also triggered a sense of something

greater than oneself, which indicates a relative diminishment of the

concepts and concerns attached to the individual self, paralleling

prior research (Campos et al., 2013; Shiota et al., 2007). Moreover,

the sense of a small self accounted for the effects of awe on

ethicality.

Study 2 is limited in certain ways. First, participants wrote about

a time when they had experienced a target emotion such as awe,

and it is possible that participants’ memories of the events, and not

the experience of awe itself, influenced their ethical tendencies.

Moreover, we assessed our mediator with a single item that,

though implying a sense of a small self by assessing feelings of

something greater than oneself, does not specifically reference

feeling diminished. We designed Study 3 to address these issues.

Study 3: Awe Increases Generosity via the Small Self

In Study 3 we induced awe in situ by exposing participants to

awe-inspiring stimuli. Participants watched a video of nature im-

agery that induced awe, a video of nature imagery that elicited

amusement, or a neutral control video. Participants also completed

a revised measure of the small self to test whether it mediates the

effects of awe on prosociality. Finally, participants completed a

behavioral measure of generosity.

We chose amusement as a comparison positive emotion for

several reasons. Amusement is a commonly employed method for

inducing general positivity, can be reliably elicited with video clips

(e.g., Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006), and has

been used in prior research as a positive emotion with which to

contrast the effects of awe (e.g., Valdesolo & Graham, 2014; Van

Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012). Moreover, like awe, amusement is

elicited by an incongruity between one’s expectations (or default

schema) and experience (Morreall, 1989). Finally, both the amuse-

ment and awe conditions depicted images of nature (e.g., natural

landscapes, plants, and nonhuman animals), which enabled us to

ascertain the specific effects of awe—beyond exposure to nature

more generally—on prosocial behavior.

Method

Participants. There were 264 students (180 female, 80 male,

and 4 unreported) from a large public university who received

b = .53** b = .14*

Small

Self

Ethical Decision-

making

Awe

(vs. Pride/Neutral)

.21

(.14,

)

Figure 1. Mediation model for Study 2. Note: The predictor variable

contrasts the awe condition against the pride and neutral conditions (awe ⫽

2, pride ⫽⫺1, neutral ⫽⫺1). Analyses control for the orthogonal control

contrast (awe ⫽ 0, pride ⫽⫺1, neutral ⫽ 1). Unstandardized coefficients

are displayed.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05,

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01,

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

889

AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

partial course credit for their participation. Ten participants were

excluded because of substantial missing data or experimental error

(stimuli failing to load); their data were not analyzed. This left 254

participants in the final sample (age 18–41, M ⫽ 20.95, SD ⫽

3.29). Twenty-four percent of participants were European Amer-

ican, 46% were Asian American, and 30% were African American,

Latino/a, Native American, or other ethnicity (one unreported).

Materials and procedure. Participants were seated at com-

puters in private cubicles and gave consent and completed demo-

graphics. Participants then put on headphones and were randomly

assigned to watch one of three videos: a 5-min neutral clip, in

which a man describes construction of a kitchen countertop; a

5-min clip that elicited amusement, consisting of a montage of

nature clips from the BBC’s comedic series, Walk on the Wild

Side, composed of animals in their natural habitats acting in ways

that are funny; or a 5-min clip inducing awe, consisting of nature

clips from the BBC’s Planet Earth series composed of grand,

sweeping shots of scenic vistas, mountains, plains, forests, and

canyons. The awe and amusement clips have been validated by

prior research (Valdesolo & Graham, 2014).

We conducted a separate pilot study to ensure that the three

conditions induced the desired emotions. Forty-five participants

viewed the awe, amusement, or neutral video and indicated the

extent to which they experienced Amusement, Anger, Awe, Dis-

gust, Fear, Sadness, and Happiness using single items (1 ⫽ not at

all,7⫽ extremely). These results are presented in the middle-left

columns of Table 3. As expected, the awe condition produced

greater levels of awe compared with the amusement and neutral

conditions, and the amusement condition produced higher levels of

amusement than the awe or neutral conditions. Anger, disgust,

fear, or sadness did not vary across conditions. Finally, general

positivity (happiness) varied by condition, such that the awe con-

dition and the amusement condition produced higher levels of

happiness than did the neutral control condition, but they did not

differ from one another. These results suggest that the awe and

amusement conditions successfully elicited our target emotions but

not other emotions, and they did not differ from one another in

terms of positivity.

After the video, participants rated their agreement with four

statements (1 ⫽ not at all true,7⫽ very true): “I feel small or

insignificant,” “I feel the presence of something greater than

myself,” “I feel part of some greater entity,” and “I feel like I am

in the presence of something grand” (Huta & Ryan, 2010; Shiota

et al., 2007). These items tapped perceptions of vastness vis-a

-vis

the self and the accompanying sense of smallness, and they formed

a reliable measure of the small self (␣⫽.82, M ⫽ 3.80, SD ⫽

1.59).

Participants then completed a version of the dictator game in

which they were told they had been randomly paired with a

participant taking part in a different session. Participants were

given a 10-point endowment and ask to decide how many of their

10 points (if any) they would like to give to their anonymous

partner, who had not received any points to start with. Participants

were told that upon completion of the study, a raffle for a $100 gift

certificate toward an online retailer would be conducted, and that

each point they had remaining at the end of the exercise would be

counted as one entry of their name into the raffle. In the current

sample, 24 participants (9.4%) gave 0 points and 23 participants

(9.1%) gave all 10 points away, and the modal number of points

given was 5 (114 participants; 44.9%). Average generosity in this

study was M ⫽ 4.67 (SD ⫽ 2.58). After completing the task,

participants were debriefed and thanked.

Results and Discussion

Does awe create the sense of a small self? We examined the

influence of emotion induction condition on the small self. A

one-way ANOVA showed significant condition differences in the

small self, F(2, 246) ⫽ 32.95, p ⬍ .001. We conducted planned

comparisons to test whether the awe induction led to enhanced

feelings of a small self (M ⫽ 4.72, SD ⫽ 1.40), relative to the

amusement (M ⫽ 3.65, SD ⫽ 1.39) and neutral conditions (M ⫽

3.01, SD ⫽ 1.46). Our “awe contrast” compared the awe condition

to the neutral and amusement conditions (coded as awe ⫽ 2,

neutral ⫽⫺1, amusement ⫽⫺1), whereas the “control contrast”

tested the residual difference between the neutral and amusement

conditions (coded as awe ⫽ 0, neutral ⫽ 1, amusement ⫽⫺1).

The awe contrast was significant, F(1, 246) ⫽ 57.67, p ⬍ .001,

such that small self ratings were higher in the awe condition

compared with the amusement and neutral conditions. The control

contrast was also significant, F(1, 246) ⫽ 8.38, p ⫽ .004, indicat-

ing that small self ratings were higher in the amusement condition

than in the neutral condition. However, an independent samples t

test verified that feelings of a small self were higher in the awe

condition than the amusement condition, t(163) ⫽ 5.28, p ⬍ .001,

d ⫽ 0.83. The awe condition led to greater small self ratings than

did the amusement or neutral conditions.

Does awe influence generosity? We next tested the influence

of emotion-induction condition on generosity in the dictator game.

A one-way ANOVA showed significant condition differences in

generosity across conditions, F(2, 250) ⫽ 4.08, p ⫽ .018. We

tested whether participants who viewed the awe-eliciting video

engaged in more generosity (M ⫽ 5.21, SD ⫽ 2.71) compared with

participants in the amusement (M ⫽ 4.50, SD ⫽ 2.39) and neutral

conditions (M

⫽ 4.31, SD ⫽ 2.57),

using the orthogonal contrast

codes described above. The awe contrast was significant, F(1,

250) ⫽ 7.90, p ⫽ .005, whereas the control contrast was not F(1,

250) ⫽ 0.28, p ⫽ .60. Thus, the awe induction increased gener-

osity relative to the amusement and neutral conditions.

Does the small self mediate the effects of awe upon

generosity? As reported above, the awe induction led to in-

creased small self ratings and generosity. In addition, the small self

was positively correlated with generosity in the dictator task, r ⫽

.20, p ⫽ .002. We performed a mediation analysis to test whether

the awe induction increased generosity via the small self. Figure 2

illustrates the mediation model and provides path coefficients. As

shown, the positive association between the awe induction (in

contrast to the amusement and neutral inductions) and generosity

became nonsignificant when feelings of a small self were included

in the model. The bootstrapping procedure for mediator models

(Preacher & Hayes, 2004, 2008) with 10,000 bootstrap iterations

yielded a 95% bias-corrected confidence interval that did not

include zero (.01 to .26). This analysis indicates that awe leads to

increased generosity via the small self.

The results of Study 3 are noteworthy in several ways. Eliciting

awe using awe-inspiring images of nature increased generosity in

contrast to another positive emotion—amusement—also elicited

by exposure to nature. This helps rule out the possibility that the

890

PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

effects of awe on prosociality are reducible to mere nature expo-

sure, which prior work has found can increase prosociality (e.g.,

Weinstein et al., 2009), or to positive emotion more generally.

Moreover, the awe condition also gave rise to feelings of smallness

of the self, which fully mediated the effects of awe on prosociality.

Still, important questions remain. Our manipulations of awe

thus far have focused on nature environments. However, there are

other significant elicitors of awe besides nature (Keltner & Haidt,

2003). This bias in our methodology leaves unexamined the ques-

tion of whether awe experienced in nonnature environments can

also increase prosocial tendencies. In a similar vein, our manipu-

lations of awe have primarily been more positively valenced,

which is true of the broader experimental literature on awe (e.g.,

Shiota et al., 2007; Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012). Again,

conceptual analyses of the varieties of awe elicitors point to others

that involve threat and uncertainty (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 2003;

Valdesolo & Graham, 2014), which raises the question of whether

more “negative” experiences of awe also enhance prosociality. We

designed Study 4 to explore these issues, as well as to bolster our

mediational findings. Specifically, our measures of the small self

thus far have assessed feelings of something greater than oneself

(e.g., Study 2) alongside feelings of smallness (Study 3), which we

have conceptualized and found are complementary facets of the

small self construct (see also Shiota et al., 2007). However, these

two facets may differentially relate to prosociality, and we have yet

to ascertain their specific roles in driving our results—primarily

because of the limitations of the measures we have used (e.g.,

single items). Thus, in Study 4 we extend and expand upon our

prior mediational findings by using a more robust measure of the

small self that contains multiple items to index vastness vis-a

-vis

the self and self-diminishment.

Study 4: Negative Awe and Nonnature Awe Increase

Prosociality via the Small Self

In Study 4 we ascertained the generalizability of our effects by

incorporating a nonnature-based induction of awe and a negative

induction of awe. The nonnature-based induction of awe was an

awe-inspiring video consisting entirely of nonnature imagery; it

did not depict scenes of the natural environment (e.g., mountains,

lakes, or forests) or living organisms (e.g., plants, nonhuman

animals; Bratman et al., 2012). The negative induction of awe was

an awe-inspiring video consisting of threatening nature stimuli.

These conditions allowed us to test whether the effects of awe on

prosociality extend beyond positive experiences of awe toward

nature. We also extended our prior results by using a new measure

of prosociality that indexes prosocial values (Van Lange, De

Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997). Finally, we incorporated a mea-

sure of our mediator that assessed in a more rigorous fashion the

vastness vis-a

-vis the self and the self-diminishment facets of the

small self construct.

Method

Participants. There were 130 participants (73 female, 57

male) who completed an online experiment via Amazon’s Me-

chanical Turk. Thirty participants were excluded for incorrectly

answering an attention check; their data were not analyzed. Of the

100 participants in the final sample (age 18–67, M ⫽ 35.19, SD ⫽

12.41), 74% were European American, 12% were African Amer-

ican, and the remaining 14% were Asian American, Latino/a,

Native American, or other ethnicity (one unreported).

Materials and procedure. Participants provided consent be-

fore being randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the

neutral condition, participants watched a 3-min version of the

neutral video used in Study 3 depicting the construction of a

wooden countertop. In the negative awe condition, participants

watched a 3-min video featuring a montage of threatening natural

phenomena (e.g., tornados, volcanoes; Keltner & Haidt, 2003). In

the nonnature-based awe condition, participants watched a 3-min

video taken in a laboratory setting of droplets of colored water

colliding with a bowl of milk. This footage was shot at 5,000

frames per second, 200 times slower than real-time (from the

Web-based series The Slow Mo Guys)—minute and intricate pat-

terns in liquid are shown that are invisible to the naked eye under

normal circumstances. Critically, this video did not depict scenes

of the natural environment or living systems (Bratman et al.,

2012).

We conducted a separate pilot study to ensure that the three

conditions induced the target emotions. Forty-five participants

watched the negative awe, nonnature-based awe, or neutral video

before reporting how much Anger, Anxiety, Awe, Disgust, Fear,

Nervousness, Sadness, and Happiness they were feeling using

single items (1 ⫽ not at all,7⫽ extremely). As Table 3 shows, the

negative and nonnature-based awe conditions produced high levels

of awe that were significantly greater than the control condition.

The negative awe condition also produced higher levels of anxiety,

fear, and nervousness than both the nonnature-based awe or

neutral conditions, and sadness was generally higher in the

negative awe condition than the other conditions. There were no

significant condition differences in anger or disgust. Finally, the

nonnature-based awe condition produced greater happiness than

both the negative awe and neutral conditions. These results suggest

that the two awe conditions, though varied in content, produced

similarly high levels of awe but divergent levels of negative

emotion and general positivity.

After watching the video, participants completed a measure of

the small self comprised of items tapping its two facets: a sense of

vastness vis-a

-vis the self and a sense of self-diminishment. To

assess vastness vis-a

-vis the self, participants indicated their agree-

ment with three items from Study 3, “I feel the presence of

something greater than myself,” “I feel part of some greater

entity,” and “I feel like I am in the presence of something grand,”

b = .24* b = .49***

Small

Self

Generosity

Awe

(vs. Amusement/Neutral)

b = .32*** (.21, ns)

Figure 2. Mediation model for Study 3. Note: The predictor variable

compares the awe condition with the amusement and neutral conditions

(awe ⫽ 2, amusement ⫽⫺1, neutral ⫽⫺1). Analyses control for the

orthogonal control contrast (awe ⫽ 0, amusement ⫽⫺1, neutral ⫽ 1).

Unstandardized coefficients are shown.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05,

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01,

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

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AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

as well as with two additional items: “I feel like I am a part of a

greater whole” and “I feel the existence of things more powerful

than myself.” To assess self-diminishment, participants rated their

agreement with the item “I feel small or insignificant” from Study

3 and four additional items: “I feel like my own day-to-day

concerns are relatively trivial,” “In the grand scheme of things, my

own issues and concerns do not matter as much,” “I feel insignif-

icant in the grand scheme of things,” and “I feel small relative to

something more powerful than myself.” These 10 items formed a

highly reliable index of the small self (␣⫽.89) and were summed

and averaged (M ⫽ 4.29, SD ⫽ 1.36). Items were presented in

random order, and embedded among them was an attention check

asking participants to select the third response option from the

right.

Next we assessed participants’ prosocial tendencies using the

Triple-Dominance Measure of Social Values (Van Lange et al.,

1997), a gauge of general preferences for resource distributions

between oneself and a hypothetical other. This measure involves a

series of nine decomposed three-choice games in which partici-

pants must decide how to allocate points to themselves and an

unknown other. For instance, in one of these games, individuals

choose between Option A (480 points for self and 80 points for

other), Option B (540 points for self and 280 points for other), and

Option C (480 points for self and 480 points for other). In this

example, Option C represents the prosocial choice because it

provides an equal distribution of points and a larger joint outcome

for both the self and the other. Options A and B are considered

proself choices in that Option A maximixes the point differential

between the self and the other (relative advantage) and Option B

maximizes one’s own point allocation (absolute advantage). Al-

though the points earned across the nine games do not translate

into any kind of payout, the instructions inform participants, “Ev-

ery point has value: The more points you receive, the better for

you, and the more points ‘Other’ receives, the better for him/her.”

This measure has been well-validated and is predictive of prosocial

behavior, for instance the number of hours participants volunteered

to a worthy cause (McClintock & Allison, 1989). Paralleling prior

research (Piff et al., 2010; White, Kenrick, Neel, & Neuberg,

2013), the total number of trials that participants chose the proso-

cial (equal distribution) option served as our measure of prosoci-

ality, with higher scores indicating greater prosocial choices (␣⫽

.98, M ⫽ 5.43, SD ⫽ 4.15). After this task, participants were

debriefed and thanked before exiting the study.

Results and Discussion

Does awe influence the small self? We tested whether the

negative awe and nonnature-based awe conditions significantly

increased the small self compared with the neutral condition. A

one-way ANOVA showed significant condition differences in the

small self, F(2, 95) ⫽ 18.62, p ⬍ .001. We next conducted planned

comparisons using orthogonal contrast codes. Our “awe contrast”

compared the negative awe condition and the nonnature-based awe

condition to the neutral condition (coded as negative awe ⫽ 1,

nonnature-based awe ⫽ 1, neutral ⫽⫺2), whereas the “type of

awe contrast” tested the residual difference between the two awe

conditions (coded as negative awe ⫽⫺1, nonnature-based awe ⫽

1, neutral ⫽ 0). The awe contrast was significant, F(1, 95) ⫽

35.39, p ⬍ .001, suggesting that small self ratings were higher in

the negative awe condition (M ⫽ 4.93, SD ⫽ 0.95) and the

nonnature-based awe condition (M ⫽ 4.57, SD ⫽ 1.30) compared

with the neutral condition (M ⫽ 3.24, SD ⫽ 1.21). The type of awe

contrast was not significant, F(1, 95) ⫽ 1.60, p ⫽ .21. These

findings indicate that the negative and nonnature-based awe con-

ditions elicited similar increases in the small self that were signif-

icantly higher than the neutral condition.

Does awe influence prosociality? We examined whether

prosociality, as indexed by the number of prosocial allocations

made across the nine games, varied by condition. A one-way

ANOVA indicated significant differences across conditions, F(2,

97) ⫽ 3.42, p ⫽ .037. The awe contrast was significant, F(1, 97) ⫽

6.59, p ⫽ .012, such that prosociality was higher in the negative

awe condition (M ⫽ 6.33, SD ⫽ 4.05) and the nonnature-based

awe condition (M ⫽ 5.91, SD ⫽ 3.88) compared with the neutral

condition (M ⫽ 3.87, SD ⫽ 4.23). The type of awe contrast was

not significant, F(1,

97) ⫽ 0.19, p ⫽ .67, indicating that prosocial

tendencies were comparable across the awe conditions. The two

awe conditions increased prosocial tendencies compared with the

neutral condition.

Does the small self mediate the effects of awe upon

prosociality? Thus far we have seen that experiences of awe,

elicited in viewing more threatening nature scenes or a nonnature

scene, led to greater feelings of a small self and more prosocial

choices, relative to the neutral condition. Moreover, the small self

was significantly associated with prosociality, r ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .002.

Given these findings, we performed a mediation analysis to test

whether the awe conditions influenced prosociality via the small

self. As Figure 3 shows, the positive association between the awe

inductions (in contrast to the neutral condition) and prosociality

became nonsignificant when the small self was included in the

model. The bootstrapping procedure for mediator models

(Preacher & Hayes, 2004, 2008) with 10,000 bootstrap iterations

yielded a 95% bias-corrected confidence interval that did not

include zero (.04 to .77). This analysis indicates that awe leads to

prosocial tendencies via the small self.

What are the specific indirect effects of vastness vis-a

-vis the

self and self-diminishment on prosociality? We also sought to

separately examine the roles of vastness vis-a

-vis the self and

self-diminishment in driving our results. We conducted a factor

analysis of the vastness and self-diminishment items to explore

whether we would be justified in treating these facets separately. A

principal-axis factor analysis using Varimax rotation of the 10

b = .72* b = .51***

Small

Self

Negative Awe/Non

nature-Based Awe

(vs. Neutral)

Prosocial

Tendencies

b = .75* (.39, ns)

Figure 3. Mediation model for Study 4. Note: The predictor variable

contrasts the two awe conditions against the neutral condition (negative

awe ⫽ 1, nonnature-based awe ⫽ 1, neutral ⫽⫺2). Analyses control for

the orthogonal type of awe contrast (negative awe ⫽⫺1, nonnature-based

awe ⫽ 1, neutral ⫽ 0). Unstandardized coefficients are shown.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05,

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01,

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

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PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

items yielded two factors with eigenvalues above 1.0 (5.27 and

1.83) that accounted for 71% of the variance. The first rotated

factor consisted of the five perceived vastness items, and it ac-

counted for 41.6% of the variance. The second rotated factor

consisted of the five small self items, and it accounted for 29.4%

of the variance. All factor loadings exceeded 0.67. The factors

were highly correlated, r ⫽ .47, p ⬍ .001, underscoring—as we

have proposed—that vastness vis-a

-vis the self and self-

diminishment are overlapping. Nonetheless, the results of the

factor analysis indicate that the two facets are empirically distin-

guishable and justify investigating their specific roles in explaining

the effects of awe on prosociality.

We summed and averaged the five vastness vis-a

-vis the self

items (␣⫽.95, M ⫽ 4.71, SD ⫽ 1.67) and the five self-

diminishment items (␣⫽.82, M ⫽ 3.83, SD ⫽ 1.51). We then

performed a multiple mediation analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2004,

2008) with 10,000 bootstrap iterations to ascertain the specific

indirect effects of these two subscales on prosocial tendencies.

Figure 4 illustrates the mediation model and provides path coef-

ficients. Together, self-diminishment and vastness vis-a

-vis the

self mediated the effect of the awe inductions (in contrast to the

neutral induction) on prosociality (95% CI ⫽ .14, 1.01). More

important, when considering the specific indirect effect of either

mediator, the indirect effect of self-diminishment was significant

(95% CI ⫽ .11 to 1.04), whereas the indirect effect of vastness

vis-a

-vis the self was nonsignificant (95% CI ⫽⫺.21, .23). Al-

though the aggregate measure of small self was a significant

mediator, the self-diminishment facet of the small self may be a

particularly significant driver of the effects of awe on prosocial

tendencies.

One reason for this may be that the self-diminishment

facet explicitly assesses the sense that one’s being and goals are

less important, which may more strongly predict a selfless orien-

tation to others.

Taken together, the results from Study 4 advance an understand-

ing of the relationship between awe and prosociality in several

ways. Eliciting awe using nonnature based or negative stimuli

similarly increased prosocial tendencies, suggesting that the effects

of awe on prosociality are not limited to experiences in nature or

purely positive experiences of awe. Moreover, these effects were

driven by the small self, and in particular self-diminishment,

suggesting that awe may most strongly influence prosociality by

triggering a sense that one’s individual being and goals are rela-

tively insignificant.

Notable, too, is that the nonnature-based

induction of awe—consisting of a video of colored droplets col-

liding in slow motion—triggered the small self in much the same

way that a video depicting the devastating power of nature did.

These results converge with past work arguing that awe is not

reducible to mere perceptions of things that are large (e.g., Keltner

& Haidt, 2003), and indicate that the small self can be aroused by

entities both large and small (e.g., those vast in complexity).

Study 5: Awe and Prosocial Behavior Amid a Grove

of Towering Trees

Thus far we have found that the dispositional tendency to

experience awe is associated with increased generosity, and that

experimental inductions of awe in the lab lead to increased proso-

cial responding. In our final experiment, we experimentally elic-

ited awe by actually situating participants in an awe-inspiring

nature setting.

Authors, artists, and naturalists have all observed that towering

trees can inspire awe. For instance, in his travelogue Travels with

Charley, John Steinbeck described the awe he felt at the redwoods

of the Pacific coast, writing, “. . . [They] leave a mark or create a

vision that stays with you always....From them comes silence

and awe” (Steinbeck, 1962). We designed the current study in part

guided by these observations and given that awe is deeply con-

nected to experiences in nature (e.g., Shiota et al., 2007). On the

campus where this study was conducted, there is a grove of

Tasmanian eucalyptus trees with heights exceeding 200 feet; it is

the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America (http://

strawberrycreek.berkeley.edu/tour/08eucalyptus.html). We led

participants to stand in this towering eucalyptus grove and asked

Given that the two awe inductions (nonnature-based awe, negative

awe) consisted of very different awe-producing phenomena, we separately

tested whether the specific mediational effects of self-diminishment and

vastness vis-a

-vis the self were different between these two conditions.

With respect to the nonnature awe condition (vs. control), the total indirect

effect of self-diminishment and vastness vis-a

-vis the self was significant

(95% CI ⫽ .40, 3.16), but when considering the specific indirect effects of

either mediator, self-diminishment was significant (95% CI ⫽ .35, 3.22),

whereas vastness vis-a

-vis the self was not (95% CI ⫽⫺.67, .87). These

findings indicate that the effects of the nonnature awe condition on proso-

ciality were specifically driven by the self-diminishment facet of the small

self. With respect to the negative awe condition (vs. control), although the

total indirect effect of self-diminishment and vastness vis-a

-vis the self was

marginally significant (90% CI ⫽ .03, 1.37), neither the indirect effect of

self-diminishment (90% CI ⫽⫺.10, 1.30) nor of vastness vis-a

-vis the self

(90% CI ⫽⫺.09, .40) was significant. These results indicate that neither

of the two subscales of the small self specifically drove the effect of the

negative awe condition on prosocial values.

This raises the question of why the feeling of “something greater than

myself” mediated the effects of awe on ethicality in Study 2 but not of awe

on prosocial values in Study 4, when vastness vis-a

-vis the self was pitted

against self-diminishment. Study 2’s findings may be attributable in part to

the strong theoretical and empirical overlap between vastness vis-a

-vis the

self and self-diminishment, which we argue are complementary facets of

the small self and is evidenced by the very high correlation between them.

It is also possible that had vastness vis-a

-vis the self been measured in

isolation in Study 4, as it was in Study 2, it would have served as a

significant mediator. Another intriguing possibility is that self-

diminishment and vastness vis-a

-vis the self differentially relate to differ-

ent forms of prosociality—a promising avenue for future research.

Vastness

Vis-à-vis the Self

Negative Awe/Non

Nature-Based Awe

(vs. Neutral)

Prosocial

Tendencies

Self-diminishment

b = .58***

b = .88*

b = .75* (.22, ns)

b = .41**

b = .01, ns

Figure 4. Multiple mediation model for Study 4 showing the specific

indirect effects of the two facets of the small self—vastness vis-a

-vis the

self and self-diminishment—on prosociality. Note: The predictor variable

contrasts the two awe conditions against the neutral condition (negative

awe ⫽ 1, nonnature-based awe ⫽ 1, neutral ⫽⫺2). Analyses control for

the orthogonal type of awe contrast (negative awe ⫽⫺1, nonnature-based

awe ⫽ 1, neutral ⫽ 0). Unstandardized regression coefficients are dis-

played.

ⴱ

p ⬍ .05,

ⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .01,

ⴱⴱⴱ

p ⬍ .001.

893

AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

them to gaze up at the trees for 1 min or at a tall building (control)

for 1 min. Unbeknownst to participants, we then examined the

effects of this fleeting experience on their levels of prosocial

helping behavior.

We also collected self-reports of several other variables relevant

to the hypothesized relationship between awe and prosociality. We

assessed ethical decision-making, thus paralleling the central find-

ing from Study 2. We also collected assessments of psychological

entitlement, which reflects a sense that one deserves more and is

entitled to more valued resources than others, and is inimical to

prosocial behavior (Campbell et al., 2004).

Method

Participants. Ninety undergraduates (40 female, 47 male, 3

unreported; age 18–32, M ⫽ 20.95, SD ⫽ 3.29) from a large

public university participated in the study as partial fulfillment of

their course requirement. Twenty-eight percent of participants

were European American, 40% were Asian American, and 29%

were African American, Latino/a, Native American, or other eth-

nicity (three unreported).

Materials and procedure. Participants arrived to the lab and

provided consent before completing demographics. The experi-

menter then gave participants directions to meet a second experi-

menter at a designated site on campus. The second experimenter,

naïve to the hypotheses and purpose of the study, used a random-

ized condition sheet to assign participants to the awe or the control

condition. Sex of the experimenter was alternated, and participants

completed the study one at a time. After greeting participants and

informing them that the study was of visual perception, the second

experimenter escorted participants to the designated study site in

the eucalyptus grove. In the awe condition, participants were asked

to spend 1 min looking up at the trees. Participants in the control

condition stood in approximately (within a few yards of) this

location but faced a different direction; they spent 1 min looking

up at an adjacent tall building (see Figure 5). This manipulation

was premised on the notion that atypically tall trees would violate

people’s expectations and elicit awe in a way that a tall building,

not atypical from others on campus, would not. Participants were

informed that they would be asked to complete a questionnaire

when 1 min had elapsed. The experimenter then stepped away

from the participant and started a timer.

We followed this procedure in a separate sample of 49 partici-

pants to verify that the tall trees elicited more awe than the tall

building. Participants spent 1 min looking up at the trees or the

building before reporting how much Amusement, Anger, Awe,

Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and Happiness they were feeling using

single items (1 ⫽ not at all,7⫽ extremely). As shown in Table 3,

participants in the awe (tall trees) condition reported greater awe

than participants in the control (tall building) condition. Amuse-

ment, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness did not vary by condition.

However, participants in the awe condition reported less anger

than control participants. As evident in the means, feelings of

anger were nonetheless extremely low across conditions. We also

found that the trees condition induced more general positivity (i.e.,

happiness) than the building condition. Controlling for awe, these

differences became nonsignificant, t(47) ⫽ .03, p ⫽ .98, whereas

the effect of condition on awe was unchanged when controlling for

happiness, t(47) ⫽ 6.33, p ⬍ .001. These analyses confirm that the

differences between conditions in general positivity were entirely

driven by condition differences in awe. Therefore, we conclude

that the tree gazing task is a valid and reliable induction of awe.

Our main dependent variable was the degree to which par-

ticipants helped the experimenter in the context of a carefully

practiced staged accident (adapted from Vohs, Mead, & Goode,

2006). After participants spent 60 s looking up at the trees or the

building, the experimenter approached participants holding a

questionnaire and a box of 11 pens, and spilled the pens in front

of them—ostensibly by accident. The number of pens partici-

pants picked up was the measure of helpfulness (M ⫽ 7.34,

SD ⫽ 1.55).

Participants then completed the questionnaire containing mea-

sures pertinent to our hypothesis. Participants completed a version

of the measure of ethicality used in Study 2 (Detert et al., 2008).

We preselected two face-valid scenarios from the eight in the

original measure that would be relevant to university students. The

first described the participant keeping money given to them acci-

Figure 5. View of the eucalyptus trees used to induce awe (left panel) and the adjacent building used for the

control condition (right panel) in Study 5. See the online article for the color version of this figure.

894

PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

dentally. The second described the participant failing to inform the

professor about an error that resulted in them receiving a higher

grade. Participants indicated how likely they would be to behave as

described (1 ⫽ very unlikely,7⫽ very likely). Responses to these

two scenarios were highly correlated, r ⫽ .38, p ⬍ .001 and were

reversed, summed, and averaged (M ⫽ 4.53, SD ⫽ 1.65).

Participants also completed three measures of psychological

entitlement. First, participants completed the Me versus Other

Scale (Campbell et al., 2004; Piff, 2014). This measure contains

seven sets of four circles, each with three circles labeled other

and one circle labeled “me.” The size of the me circle increases

across the seven sets, but the size of the other circles does not

vary. Participants select a set of circles to represent how they

see themselves in relation to others (M ⫽ 3.94, SD ⫽ 1.09).

Participants also completed the Psychological Entitlement Scale

(PES; Campbell et al., 2004), a 9-item measure of individuals’

sense of deservingness vis-a

-vis others. Participants indicated

their agreement (1 ⫽ strongly disagree,7⫽ strongly agree)

with statements such as, “I honestly feel I’m just more deserv-

ing than others” (␣⫽.86; M ⫽ 3.18, SD ⫽ 1.06). Finally, we

assessed monetary deservingness by asking participants to

imagine they would be paid for their participation and to

indicate an amount between $1 and $10 that represented how

much they felt they should receive (adapted from Campbell et

al., 2004; M ⫽ $4.27, SD ⫽ $2.75). Finally, participants were

thanked and debriefed.

Results and Discussion

Does in vivo awe increase helping behavior? We first tested

whether participants in the awe condition offered more help to the

experimenter than participants in the control condition. In keeping

with our central hypothesis, participants in the awe condition

gathered more pens (M ⫽ 7.70, SD ⫽ 0.71) than did participants

in the control condition (M ⫽ 7.02, SD ⫽ 1.98), t(88) ⫽ 2.12, p ⫽

.037, d ⫽ .45.

Does in vivo awe influence ethical decision-making? We

next tested whether ethicality varied across the awe and control

conditions. Participants in the awe condition exhibited marginally

greater ethical tendencies (M ⫽ 3.78, SD ⫽ 1.75) than did control

participants (M ⫽ 3.17, SD ⫽ 1.52), t(88) ⫽ 1.79, p ⫽ .078, d ⫽

0.38.

Does in vivo awe reduce entitlement? Finally, we examined

the influence of condition on entitlement. Participants in the awe

condition chose smaller circles to represent themselves in relation

to others (M ⫽ 3.63, SD ⫽ 1.07) compared with the control

condition (M ⫽ 4.23, SD ⫽ 1.03), t(88) ⫽ 2.74, p ⫽ .007, d ⫽

0.58. Participants in the awe condition also scored lower on the

PES (M ⫽ 2.74, SD ⫽ 1.05) than control participants (M ⫽ 3.59,

SD ⫽ 0.89), t(87) ⫽ 4.10, p ⬍ .001, d ⫽ 0.88. Further, participants

in the awe condition felt they deserved to be paid with significantly

fewer dollars (M ⫽ $3.57, SD ⫽ 2.14)

than did control participants

(M ⫽ $5.74, SD ⫽ 2.85), t(87) ⫽ 4.03, p ⬍ .001, d ⫽ 0.86. We

also standardized and averaged these measures to compute an

entitlement composite (␣⫽.65; M ⫽ 0.00, SD ⫽ 0.77). The awe

(M ⫽⫺0.37, SD ⫽ 0.66) and control conditions (M ⫽ 0.34, SD ⫽

0.71) yielded robust differences in this composite measure, t(86) ⫽

4.83, p ⬍ .001, d ⫽ 1.04.

In Study 5 we immersed participants in an awe-inspiring

environment: a grove of towering trees. Participants who gazed

up at the trees offered more help to an experimenter than did

participants who gazed up at a building, and they reported

increased ethicality and reduced feelings of entitlement. That

these effects emerged after a brief treatment condition (1 min

looking at trees) indicates that even fleeting experiences of awe

can have a meaningful impact on various types of prosocial

judgments and behavior. It is also notable that prosociality (and

awe) diverged across two conditions that both involved physi-

cally large stimuli, highlighting again that neither awe nor its

effects on prosociality is reducible to perceptions of entities

simply large in size.

General Discussion

Humans have evolved a number of mechanisms that facilitate

life within social collectives—mechanisms that reduce the em-

phasis on the self and its interests, and encourage prosociality

(e.g., reputation, social norms; for a review see Keltner et al.,

2014). In the current investigation, we examined for the first

time whether the experience of awe can serve this vital social

function—a function widely speculated about in the theoretical

literature (e.g., Durkheim, 1887/1972; Keltner & Haidt, 1999,

2003). Given that awe can trigger a relative diminishment of the

individual self and its interests vis-a

-vis something perceived to

be more vast than oneself (Campos et al., 2013; Shiota et al.,

2007), we reasoned that awe should promote more selfless,

other-oriented behaviors.

The results of the five studies reported here lend support to

this central hypothesis. Individuals higher in dispositional ten-

dencies to experience awe exhibited more generosity in an

economic game (Study 1). Experimentally inducing awe caused

individuals to endorse more ethical decisions (Study 2), to be

more generous to a stranger (Study 3), and to report more

prosocial values (Study 4). A naturalistic induction of awe in

which participants looked up at a grove of towering trees led to

increased helpfulness, greater ethicality, and decreased entitle-

ment (Study 5). These findings highlight that the experience of

awe can influence prosociality in a broad fashion, and contrib-

ute to the growing literature documenting the centrality of

emotions to human sociality (e.g., DeSteno, 2009; Keltner et

al., 2014).

Why does awe arouse altruism? Across our studies we found

that the effects of awe on prosociality are explained by self-

reports of what we have generally referred to as the small self.

In Study 2, the influence of the awe induction on ethical

decision-making was accounted for by perceptions of some-

thing greater than the self, implying a relative diminishment of

the concepts and concerns attached to the individual self. In

Study 3, the effects of awe on generosity were explained by

feelings of smallness, insignificance, and something greater

than the self. In Study 4, the effects of awe on prosocial values

were mediated by perceptions of things greater than oneself and

feelings that one’s being, concerns, and interests are relatively

insignificant (e.g., seeing oneself as less important in the grand

scheme of things). It would seem, as hypothesized, that awe

leads to more prosocial tendencies by broadening the individ-

895

AWE, THE SMALL SELF, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

ual’s perspective to include entities vaster and more powerful

than oneself and diminishing the salience of the individual self.

Finally, in several studies the effects upon prosociality were

specific to awe and not other positive emotions or exposure to

nature, both of which can be triggers of prosocial behavior (e.g.,

Lyubomirsky et al., 2005; Weinstein et al., 2009). In Study 1,

awe predicted prosocial behavior in an economic game when

controlling for various prosocial positive emotions, including

love and compassion, the latter also demonstrating unique in-

fluences upon sharing. In Study 2, awe but not pride increased

ethicality. In Study 3, awe elicited by nature, but not amuse-

ment elicited by nature, increased generosity. In Study 4, a

nonnature-based induction of awe as well as a negative induc-

tion of awe that also elicited moderate levels of fear and

uncertainty both enhanced prosocial tendencies. Awe exerts a

specific and likely unique effect on prosociality that is distinct

from the influences of other positive emotions, not confounded

by more general positive affect, and not reducible to experi-

ences in nature.

Several features of our findings increase our confidence that

awe promotes altruism via the small self. We documented these

results in diverse populations: student, online, and nationally

representative adult samples. Our measures of prosociality

ranged across its many forms, and included: sharing a resource

(Study 1, 3, and 4), helping someone in need (Study 5), ethical

decision-making (Study 2, 5), and psychological entitlement

(Study 5). We observed these findings across multiple empirical

approaches to awe: dispositional self-reports, narrative recall,

video inductions, and looking up at 200-foot-tall trees. These

findings suggest that the association between awe and prosoci-

ality is not confined to particular instantiations of awe or

specific approaches to its study.

Implications and Future Directions

Past theory and research argues that awe is a discrete emotion.

Accounts of elicitors and self-reports of subjective experiences of

awe are distinguishable from those of other positive emotions,

including joy, love, amusement, and contentment (Campos et al.,

2013; Shiota et al., 2006). Awe is also linked to specific patterns

of vocalizations (Simon-Thomas, Keltner, Sauter, Sinicropi-Yao,

& Abramson, 2009) and facial muscle movements (Shiota et al.,

2003), and may be associated with a distinct physiological signa-

ture (Maruskin, Thrash, & Elliot, 2012; Shiota, Neufeld, Yeung,

Moser, & Perea, 2011). Research has also begun to document

unique effects of awe upon social cognition (e.g., Rudd et al.,

2012; Valdesolo & Graham, 2014). Most relevant to our research,

awe has been shown to trigger feelings of smallness of the self

vis-a

-vis something more vast or powerful than the individual

(e.g., Shiota et al., 2007). Our findings show that beyond altering

the self-concept, awe also encourages other-oriented, prosocial

behavior.

Our findings should be extended and expanded upon in

several ways. Building on the current research, investigations

should further illuminate the sufficient features and necessary

conditions of experiences of awe. In this regard, examining the

interplay between vastness and accommodation will be partic-

ularly fruitful. How does the experience of awe unfold over

time, as current knowledge structures and schema are updated

to accommodate the vastness being perceived? The novelty of a

stimulus, and eventual habituation to it, are likely critical de-

terminants of awe.

Additional work should further elucidate why awe is associ-

ated with prosociality. Whereas we focused on the mediating

role of the small self, other plausible mechanisms linked to awe

should be tested, including enhanced feelings of connection

with others and more universal self-definitions (e.g., Shiota et

al., 2007; Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012). It will also be

important to differentiate the small self from negative self-

feelings, which refer to lower judgments of self-worth, self-

respect, and self-acceptance (e.g., Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). In

our studies, inductions of awe elicited levels of happiness

comparable with other positive emotions (e.g., amusement). In

other work, awe was positively associated with positive emo-

tions, including pride (Shiota et al., 2006), which is central to

self-esteem (Scheff, Retzinger, & Ryan, 1989). These findings

suggest that awe is not injurious to one’s self-worth in the way

that other social threats and self-devaluation can be. One reason

for this may be that the object of awe is often nonsocial (i.e.,

awe is typically experienced toward nonhuman entities). As

such, awe may not involve the social comparison processes that

trigger threatening feelings of shame, inferiority, or unworthi-

ness (e.g., Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Murray et

al., 2005). Another possibility is that a large self is not neces-

sarily the best self. That is, a reduced sense of self may allow

people to transcend self-interest and behave in accordance with

their higher moral values, which may actually increase self-

esteem (e.g., Canevello & Crocker, 2011; for a related discus-

sion on the distinction between humility and self-worth, see

Tangney, 2009). These topics are promising avenues for future

research.

We examined the effects of awe on a broad array of prosocial

outcomes, from generosity and helping to psychological enti-

tlement and abstinence from cheating. Future studies should

explore other facets of prosocial action, including donations to

public goods, proenvironmental behavior, and altruistic punish-

ment—that is, punishing noncooperators at a cost to oneself

(Keltner et al., 2014). Such investigations will help illuminate

the breadth and boundaries of awe’s prosocial effects. In addi-

tion, although our interest has been in documenting prosociality

as an interesting and important consequence of awe, we do not

mean to suggest that it is the only consequence of awe. The

experience of awe is likely to impact other significant and as yet

unexplored outcomes. For example, insofar as awe challenges

one’s normal frame of reference and triggers the sense that

one’s default schema needs to be updated, it may also motivate

people to take in new information. It will be interesting to test

whether experiences of awe can specifically enhance curiosi-

ty—the recognition, pursuit, and regulation of novelty and

challenge—across both social and nonsocial contexts, for ex-

ample by enhancing people’s openness to novel experiences

(Kashdan, Rose, & Fincham, 2004).

A final area fertile with interesting research questions and

novel hypotheses concerns the association between awe and

religiosity. A number of theorists have pointed to religion as

being a potent catalyst and occasion for awe (e.g., James,

1902/1985; Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Places of worship such as

temples, cathedrals, and mosques are in part designed to elicit

896

PIFF, DIETZE, FEINBERG, STANCATO, AND KELTNER

awe (e.g., Francis, Williams, Annis, & Robbins, 2008). In

religious texts, God is often conceptualized as limitless, all-

powerful, and incomprehensible (see Weber, 1920/1993)—ap-

praisals that are also common to the experience of awe. In

essential ways, religions represent social institutions that elicit,

organize, and ritualize awe. Most relevant to the current inves-

tigation, recent work suggests that religion is associated with

increased prosocial behavior (e.g., Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008;

Saroglou, Pichon, Trompette, Verschueren, & Dernelle, 2005;

Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007; Wilson, 2002). What this concep-

tual analysis suggests is that the effects of religion on prosoci-

ality may be partly attributable to awe. Religious institutions

may promote prosociality insofar as they attune individuals to

forces more powerful than themselves and are effective con-

duits of awe—an intriguing hypothesis for future research.

Conclusion

Awe arises in evanescent experiences. Looking up at the

starry expanse of the night sky. Gazing out across the blue

vastness of the ocean. Feeling amazed at the birth and devel-

opment of a child. Protesting at a political rally or watching a

favorite sports team live. Many of the experiences people

cherish most are triggers of the emotion we focused on here—

awe. Our investigation indicates that awe, although often fleet-

ing and hard to describe, serves a vital social function. By

diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may

encourage people to forego strict self-interest to improve the

welfare of others. Future research should build on these initial

findings to further uncover the ways in which awe shifts people

away from being the center of their own individual worlds,

toward a focus on the broader social context and their place

within it.

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.2013.11.008

Received April 24, 2014

Revision received February 11, 2015

Accepted March 3, 2015 䡲

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