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What makes for an awe-inducing experience? And how does it benefit your life?
BusinessInsider.com recently covered a forthcoming study on awe, otherwise known as that feeling of "reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder." The study's lead author, Melanie Rudd (Stanford's Graduate School of Business), says true awe experiences have two components:
1) You need to perceive that you’ve encountered something vast in number, size, scope, complexity, or social bearing; and
2) You must feel that you need to revise or update the way you think/your understanding of the world in order to understand the perceptually vast thing/stimuli.
What elicits a sense of awe will differ among people, but Rudd says there are some things that seem to produce awe more frequently: experiencing nature, being exposed to art or music, and observing the accomplishments of others.
The 4 Benefits of Awe
The results of the study ultimately showed that awe offsets the feeling that time is limited. This, in turn, increased participants':
Getting More Awe
How do you get more frequent awe in your life? Rudd suggests putting yourself in new situations, in new places, and encountering new people to increase your chances of feeling awesome.
