a vastness of skill or might and are wise to cloak themselves with the
trappings of status and an air of inaccessibility. Awe channels power.
Melanie Rudd, who studies consumer psychology at the University of
Houston, wanted to know if awe, by focusing our attention on the
present moment, might expand our perception of time. Anything that
could do this might be a great discovery “given that there is a huge
time famine in many societies in the world,” as she put it, “and this
has a huge impact on mental and physical health, life satisfaction,
depression, headaches and hypertension.” Nearly half of all
Americans feel they do not have enough time on a daily basis.
When Rudd induced either awe or happiness in her lab subjects,
only awe led them to feel less time-pressured, to report less
impatience and to volunteer extra time to help others. These happened
after quick interventions, such as looking at videos of whales and
waterfalls, suggesting that images can indeed induce at least some
feelings of awe. The implications of her work are huge for consumer
advertising. Seen an ad lately for a new car? Chances are it’s traveling
through a magnificent landscape, not stuck on the Beltway. “Lots of
things we buy can get framed in an experiential way,” she said.
“Being in nature had the biggest effects we saw.”
Very few studies have looked at awe and behavior in the field,
other than Piff’s one minute of staring at trees. But if we look at our
phones (don’t tell Strayer), it’s evident that people want to share
experiences of awe. That’s why we Instagram photos of sunsets and
“like” videos of swarming starlings while savoring another great
word: murmuration. We now experience small moments of
awesomeness on a daily basis through our feeds and our screensavers.
Perhaps these “microbreaks” help make up for the loss of the
powerful and the vast connections to nature we used to experience
when we spent more time outside, but “the jury is still out on how
much social media shapes our everyday experience of well-being,”
said Irvine’s Piff.