The upsides of feeling small

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“Over the past two decades, psychologists have converged on these 200-year-old ideas of the sublime, but from a different angle – and by doing so, they have illuminated other more specific benefits of feeling small in the face of enormity.

Two decades ago, the cognitive scientists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt were seeking to understand what they saw as the more neglected emotions, and became particularly intrigued by the experience of awe. After immersing themselves in accounts from history, art, anthropology and religion, they settled on a definition: "Awe," they concluded, "is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world." Awe comes with myriad mental benefits. Various studies have shown that experiencing awe can reduce stress, discourage rumination, and enhance well-being. It also fosters greater attention to detail, boosts memory and encourages critical thinking.

There are also pro-social benefits: people in awe are more likely to show generosity, become less individualist, and emphasise a greater sense of connection to others and the world. For example, when Keltner and Michelle Shiota of Arizona State University primed people to feel awe in one experiment – by looking at a T. rex skeleton in a museum – they were subsequently more likely to describe themselves as part of a community. As Keltner writes: "People in the control condition defined themselves in terms of distinct traits and preferences, in the spirit of individualism and its privileging of distinctness over common humanity. People feeling awe named qualities they shared with others – being a college student, belonging to a dance society, being human, being part of the category of all sentient beings."

Read the whole article at BBC

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