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+--- Thread: The most common source of awe might surprise you: It's us. (/thread-13624.html)
The most common source of awe might surprise you: It's us. - C C - Feb 9, 2023
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/most-common-source-of-awe/
EXCERPTS: The most common source of awe is not sublime scenery. Rather, it is the moral actions of your fellow humans. Experiencing awe has salubrious side effects, such as reduced stress, increased generosity, and boosted life satisfaction. Look to your friends, family, and even strangers to bring more awe into your life.
[...] In a recent experiment yet to be peer-reviewed, University of California-Berkeley professor of psychology Dacher Keltner, Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Center, and his collaborators, psychologists Yang Bai and Maria Monroy, provided thousands of participants from 26 countries with the definition of awe: “Being in the presence of something vast and mysterious that transcends your current understanding of the world.” Then, they asked them to share personal memories of when they felt awe.
From the roughly 2,600 narratives that participants provided, a clear and common thread emerged.
“It was other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming — actions of strangers, roommates, teachers, colleagues at work, people in the news, characters on podcasts, and our neighbors and family members,” that most often prompted participants to feel awe, Keltner recounted in his recently released book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life... (MORE - missing details)
RE: The most common source of awe might surprise you: It's us. - Magical Realist - Feb 9, 2023
I find people do play a crucial role in my experience of awe, but not for moral reasons. I am amazed and astounded by the insights and observations made by smart people who are accessible via the internet. I myself am prone to a view of reality of always being on the verge of impossibility. We all face a common and universal experience of being alive on planet earth among hundreds of billions of galaxies. If that doesn't inspire some awe in us, not much else will.