Stronger than fear: awe, ritual, identity and water decisions

Wolfe used funding from a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to investigate the role of awe in water decisions and connected these insights to the water management community.

This IDG was used to concurrently 1) identify whether awe could be that ‘powerful something’ to influence water decisions, and 2) assess the trans-disciplinary methods and empirical data necessary to test this hypothesis, 3) connect these insights to the conventional water management community.

Awe has a long history in religious study and practice. However, in the last two decades study of this emotion has become increasingly popular in psychology-focused academic research. Awe is a self-transcendent emotion that re-writes what an individual thought they knew about the world. A common definition in academic research asserts that experiencing awe creates a need for accommodation – the need to re-evaluate one’s thoughts in light of new information or experiences – and arises from a sense of vastness. Vastness can be perceived physically, as with a grand vista, morally, as with a great leader, or conceptually, as with a complex mathematical equation. Awe can be prompted by both positive and fear-based experiences. For example, the most frequent elicitor of positive awe experiences is the natural environment, whereas fear-based awe is most commonly caused by reverence for individuals with extreme authority. Awe frequently causes physiological reactions of goosebumps and distinct, instinctual facial expressions.

At the Society Environment and Emotions (SEE) Lab, we research the positive impacts that awe can have on individuals and their environmental decisions. Recent studies have shown that this emotion can make people feel more connected to others and to the natural environment, experience more gratitude and generosity, and even enhance critical thinking and lessen the desire for materialism. Current data on awe shows the ability for this emotion to generally improve one’s well-being – our lab is exploring how we can expand this research by further examining the importance of experiencing awe and awe’s potential to motivate behavioural change. This deeper understanding of awe helped us answer questions about how to get consumers and experts to make better water decisions when faced with immense change and uncertainty.

For more information on this research and our peer-reviewed publications, please see: https://sarahwolfe.ca/research-and-writing/
For more information about emotions and environmental issues, please see: https://seelab.ca/emotions/
For more information about working with Dr. Wolfe as part of a graduate degree, please see: https://seelab.ca/join-us/