How do People Perceive and React to Awe-Prone Individuals?

Psychologists have studied the psychosocial consequences of feeling awe, methods of awe elicitation, and correlates of awe-proneness. However, little is known about how people perceive and react to those who express awe, hindering our understanding of this emotion's social effects. In three pre-registered experiments (N = 907) conducted with UK community samples, we examined how observers infer dispositions from displays of awe-proneness and how they react to awe-prone individuals in work and romantic settings. Awe-proneness was manipulated through textual information (Experiments 1 and 3) and prepopulated surveys (Experiment 2). Using both methods, we consistently found that people perceive awe-prone individuals positively. High-awe-prone (vs. low-awe-prone) individuals were perceived as warmer (Experiments 1 – 3), which further predicted participants' willingness to select a high-awe-prone (vs. low-awe-prone) individual as a group member for group tasks (Experiments 2 – 3). Perceptions of warmth also explained participants’ willingness to meet the high-awe-prone person as a potential match for dating (Experiment 3). Perceptions of and reactions to awe-prone individuals further depended on the context that elicited awe. A high-nature-awe-prone (vs. high-social-awe-prone) individual was perceived as warmer and more competent, and people were more willing to select a high-nature-awe-prone individual both as a group member and as a group leader (Experiments 2 – 3). People were also more willing to meet the high-nature-awe person as a potential match for dating (Experiment 3). These findings have important social ramifications for expressions of awe. In future studies, we will use the reverse correlation paradigm to explore people’s visual representation of awe-prone faces.