The Awesome Psychology of Awe

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

These are the words of Neil Armstrong, reflecting on the sight of looking down on Earth from the moon, 239,000 miles away (NASA, 2017). He was experiencing the overview effect, a psychological phenomenon that has been noted in astronauts reporting an “overwhelming emotion and feelings of identification with humankind and the planet as a whole” (Yaden et al., 2016).

This awe-inspiring experience is not solely one of positive appreciation and wonder, however. It is tinged with an eye-opening sadness, fear, and recognition of vulnerability.

There are several interesting questions to be asked here. Why does such a breathtaking view prompt fear and vulnerability, rather than our traditional expectation of excitement in the face of something truly awesome? How is it that we have a built-in psychophysiological response to something as far removed from our life on Earth as space travel? Why do we experience awe in the first place—does it have any benefits?

The Biological and Evolutionary Roots of Awe

The answers to all of these questions are rooted in our biology and evolutionary past. We did not always have the capacity to experience complex emotions like awe—most animals do not—yet all such complex emotions are created from the building blocks of more evolutionary ancient phenomena.

Perhaps the best theory for understanding this is the Hierarchical Model of Approach-Avoidance Motivation, a relatively recent synthesis of evolutionary biology and neuropsychology posed by psychologist Andrew Elliot (2006). The first basic tenet of this theory is that all animal behavior is governed by a combination of their approach towards positive stimuli (e.g., food, shelter, or sex) and avoidance of negative stimuli (i.e., danger).

Approach-avoidance behavior is observed across all levels of the animal kingdom: Even single-cellular amoebae will approach or withdraw from different stimuli depending on how different wavelengths of light expand or contract the cell’s protoplasm (Schneirla, 1959; Elliot & Covington, 2001).

In animals that have evolved a more sophisticated central nervous system, a number of different approach and avoidance motivations may compete against each other. For example, what do you do if there is a tasty donut guarded by a lion? That depends on weighing how hungry you are (approach) against how dangerous you believe the lion to be (avoidance).

Or perhaps there is no lion, and you must decide whether to forego immediate gratification in order to obtain the long-term satisfaction of sticking to your diet. Both of these motivations exist and give rise to conflicting emotions.

In the end, however, some motivations will outcompete others: They are arranged hierarchically (Elliot, 2006). This hierarchical model gives rise to endless possibilities of how different approach and avoidance stimuli may be combined to shape our emotions, cognition, and behavior.

The experience of awe is one such example of a complex assembling of motivations, but we did not always know this. Historically, awe has been considered an elusive experience that transcends human understanding.

The 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant referred to this phenomenon as "the sublime." In his 1764 book, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, the sublime is portrayed as an ineffable experience of both fear and wonder: something which “arouse[s] enjoyment but with horror” (Kant, 1764/2004, p. 46). Despite its seemingly indescribable nature, Kant’s intuition shows us that the experience of awe bears the markers of both classic approach and avoidance responses, and may be psychologically deconstructed into more primary emotions.

The neurophysiology of awe’s constituent parts, fear and wonder, is well understood. This is particularly true of fear, which, due to its clear survival benefits, is one of our most primitive emotions.

There is remarkable consistency in the processing of fear throughout the evolutionary ladder: In almost all mammals, fear is processed in the same ancient region of the brain, the amygdala, through neurochemical responses in the NMDA channels (Fendt & Fanselow, 1999). Across species, these signals cause basic physiological changes in the sympathetic nervous system, such as increased heart rates and production of the stress hormone cortisol, in addition to more complex predatory-response mechanisms (Fendt & Fanselow, 1999).

For example, mice, cats, and chimpanzees will all experience piloerection when threatened: The hairs on their bodies will puff up, in order to look big and scare off predators (Masuda et al., 1999; Muller et al., 2007). Though humans have lost most of our body hair over the last few million years, we have retained this evolutionarily ancient response as the familiar sensation of goosebumps, both when experiencing fear and awe (Benedek & Kaernbach, 2011).

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In contrast to fear, wonder is a more complex emotion to understand from an evolutionary perspective, and may be an experience more unique to humans. We may break down the experience of wonder into two forms: adoration and admiration (Schindler et al., 2013).

Adoration is a natural extension of, or appreciation for, our positive emotions in response to approach stimuli. For example, experiencing wonder at the sight of a lush landscape or beautiful waterfall may be an approach motivation towards an environment full of resources that would enhance our chances of survival, whether this is recognized consciously or not. Adoration, therefore, is a form of wonder directed at things.

Admiration, on the other hand, is a form of wonder directed at agents and is closely related to the desire to imitate (Schindler et al., 2013). Imitation requires greater cognitive capacity in order to manifest social intelligence known as "theory of mind" (i.e., the ability to understand others’ mental states), but its survival benefits are clear (Heyes, 2001). For example, a pack-hunting animal that experiences any form of admiration for superior hunters may become motivated to imitate them, thereby increasing its chances of securing its next meal.

The Adaptive Utility of Awe

Understanding the origins of its constituent parts, we can now begin to understand the adaptive utility of awe. Imagine yourself again in Neil Armstrong’s shoes (or suit), looking down from space at the sight of the planet Earth, containing the whole of humanity, overshadowed by your thumb. As you realize the profundity of this perspective, your heart rate increases, you get goosebumps, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and you experience that sublime feeling of both fear and wonder.

The wonder is obvious, in both its forms: adoration for your beautiful life-sustaining home, and admiration for the great minds and technological advancements that brought us the power of spaceflight. Fear, and its characteristic physiological response, come at the recognition of your own vulnerability: If there are perspectives from which the entire Earth appears smaller than a thumbnail, how much smaller does that make you as a human living on that massive, tiny marble?

The experience of awe is so deeply biologically ingrained in us that it can be triggered not only by extraterrestrial stimuli but by stimuli that do not actually exist. Psychedelic drugs can reliably induce awe-inspiring hallucinations through simple neurochemical reactions in the brain (Hendricks, 2018).

While recreational use of these substances is not to be taken lightly, in clinical settings, they may offer remarkable psychological and health-related benefits. For example, a 2018 study by researchers at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University found that administering psilocybin to cigarette smokers in controlled settings resulted in smoking cessation in 87 percent of participants, 92 percent of whom remaining non-smokers at 12-month follow-up (Noorani et al., 2018).

Most notably, the experience of awe appears to be central to this process. In a related study by the same group, only psilocybin-administered participants who reported “mystical experiences” saw clinically significant reductions in depression and anxiety (Griffiths et al., 2016). In other words, participants who ingested the drug but did not experience awe had no benefit.

Fortunately, the psychological benefits of awe can be achieved without the use of potentially dangerous (and often illegal) hallucinogens. Fundamentally, awe is a matter of perspective-taking. It does not matter whether this perspective-taking comes as a result of being shown awe-inspiring scenery, taking mind-altering drugs, or simple acts of mindfulness. Psychological studies have shown that awe can be induced by experiencing virtual reality (Chirico et al., 2018), reflecting on past spiritual experiences (Preston & Shin, 2017), or simply thinking about nature (Howell et al., 2011).

What these forms of perspective-taking all have in common is a feeling of “small self” (Piff et al., 2015). When encountering something truly awesome, we feel small and vulnerable, hence the physiological responses associated with fear (i.e., goosebumps and increased heart rate). Moreover, our brain’s default mode network becomes deactivated, and the frontoparietal network becomes strongly activated (van Elk et al., 2019). In other words, the background noise dims down, and we become more attentive and primed for problem-solving.

Paradoxically, though these neurophysiological responses bear the mark of fight or flight, the “small self” has repeatedly and cross-culturally been associated with collective engagement, gratitude, and prosocial behavior (Piff et al., 2015; Bai et al., 2017). A five-experiment study by researchers across the United States and Canada found that inducing awe in a lab setting, through mindful recollection of past experiences of awe, caused participants to become more generous and prosocial in economic games, and more concerned about ethical values (Piff et al., 2015).

The effects of awe were independent of and stronger than other emotions, including compassion. There is something unique about the small self, and its associated feelings of interconnectedness and vulnerability, that causes individuals to re-evaluate their priorities and behave for the greater good.

Awe is a mysterious phenomenon; it is "the sublime" which puzzled philosophers for ages. Yet thanks to modern advancements in neuropsychology, grounded in evolutionary theory, it can be understood as a complex adaptive emotion arising from a combination of more fundamental approach and avoidance motivations. Experiences of both fear and wonder are well-understood, and at times, they uniquely overlap to give us that truly awe-inspiring combination of vulnerability and interconnectedness.

The benefits of experiencing awe are not limited merely to the sublime feeling of wonder, or even to the lifestyle changes that may occur as a result of re-evaluating one’s priorities, such as smoking cessation. It is a shift of perspective that promotes ethical concern, open-mindedness, prosociality, and generosity. Awe is therefore not only a valuable experience for the individual but a prerequisite for our collective sociological and psychological well-being. Best of all, it can be induced at will through simple mindfulness exercises, such as reflecting on nature or gratitude, in a manner that will literally change your brain, body, and behavior. The benefits of awe are truly awesome.