Keltner on Awe: In the Presence of Something Vast

Context

Keltner's research program treats awe as a daily emotion rather than a rare peak experience. His data show that people feel awe several times a week — in nature, in music, in the behavior of strangers — and that the emotion has measurable effects on the body and the self.

The definition is deliberately precise. By tying awe to vastness and the failure-and-expansion of understanding, it separates awe from mere surprise, fear, or admiration, and gives researchers a target to measure.

Significance

The sentence is the working definition behind one of the most active research programs in the psychology of well-being. It has made awe a practical resource: because awe is available in everyday life — a walk under trees, a piece of music, a story of courage — it does not require grand occasions.

Its philosophical echo is the ancient identification of wonder as the beginning of wisdom. The person who can still be awed is the person who has not closed the book on the world. Explore the theme in exploring the aesthetic experience, how to find beauty in life, and wonder.

Related Learning

• Explore the experience in wonder and awe.
• Read the companion insight in Haidt on happiness and Einstein on the mysterious.
• Continue with awe, wonder, and the Happiness & The Good Life learning path.

Sources

1. Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder (Penguin Press, 2023).
2. Keltner, D., and Haidt, J. "Approaching Awe, a Moral, Spiritual, and Aesthetic Emotion." Cognition and Emotion 17(2), 2003.