The Experience of Awe in Nature

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This Small Grant built on earlier work by the Principal Investigator on moral emotions, funded by an ESRC First Grant. Overall the research programme investigates various moral emotions and their role on thoughts and behaviours. The current project more specifically explored positive moral emotions, including awe, moral elevation and admiration for skill. Several studies tested the influence of awe on prosocial and environmental concern. Another set of studies investigated the cognitive and behavioural difference in response to other people's excellence in the moral domain, or in domains of exceptional skill. We additionally focussed on other aspects of the broader research programme of the Principal Investigator, on embodied moral emotions and their role in judgments and decisions. For example, we tested the influence of linguistic metaphors on the extremity of moral judgment. A number of novel findings were obtained and have been published consequently, including on the influence of moral elevation on prosocial behaviour, and on various non-rational influences on moral judgment