Table 1 Review of prosocial effects of awe.
Study | Independent variable | Dependent variable | Findings |
|---|---|---|---|
Van Cappellen and Saroglou, 2012 | the induction of awe | feelings of oneness with others | • Awe at nature and childbirth led to a greater sense of oneness with others for religious/spiritual people. |
Rudd et al., 2012 | awe | perception of time | • Awe made people believe they have more time and are more likely to volunteer their time to help others. |
Piff et al., 2015 | awe | prosocial behaviour | • Dispositional awe predicted higher generosity. State awe increased moral decision-making, prosocial values, and helping behaviours and reduced feelings of entitlement. The feeling of a small self may partly explain the effect of awe on prosociality. |
Prade and Saroglou, 2016 | the induction of awe | generosity and helping | • Awe increased spontaneous generosity and willingness to help those in need. |
Tian et al., 2016 | awe | organisational citizenship behaviours | • A sense of awe among organisational members encouraged behaviours such as protecting the organisation’s prestige and providing constructive advice. |
Bai et al., 2017 | awe | collective engagement | • Awe diminished the individual’s sense of self, shifts attention away from the self, and encourages collective engagement. |
Guo et al., 2018 | awe inspired by products | willingness to spread the word of mouth | • Awe increased consumers’ intention to spread positive word-of-mouth. |
Guan et al., 2019 | awe | prosocial tendency | • Individuals with higher dispositional awe showed more prosocial tendencies. Participants in the positive and negative awe conditions were more willing to donate than those in the neutral ones. |
Li et al., 2019 | dispositional awe | prosocial behaviour | • Dispositional awe can enhance an individual’s self-transcendent meaning of life, promote future time perspective, and promote prosocial behaviour. |
Yang and Hu, 2021 | incidental awe | consumer forgiveness | • Incidental awe can encourage consumer forgiveness through self-diminishment processes in the event of service failure. |
Chen et al., 2021 | awe | helping behaviour | • Awe increased tourists’ and residents’ helping behaviour in tourism. Time perception and the small self mediated the effect. |
Jiang et al., 2022 | awe | environmentally responsible behaviour | • Tourists’ sense of awe positively impacted satisfaction and environmentally responsible behaviour. |
Jiang and Sedikides, 2022 | awe | prosociality | • Dispositional awe was positively related to authentic-self pursuit, and state awe promoted authentic-self pursuit, increasing general prosociality. |
Hu, 2023 | dispositional awe | socially responsible consumption | • Dispositional awe reinforced the meaning of life, which ultimately positively impacted socially responsible consumption. |
Xu and Hu, 2023 | nature-inspired awe | environmentally responsible behaviour | • Awe can inspire visitors to adopt a higher level of construal, increasing their sense of connectedness with nature and the likelihood of environmentally responsible behaviour. |
Luo et al., 2023 | awe | prosociality | • During the pandemic, dispositional awe positively predicted prosocial behaviour. Awe could predict prosociality through a sense of connectedness and empathy. |
Stamkou et al., 2023 | art-elicited awe | prosociality | • Awe inspired prosocial behaviour in children. Children who watched the short film about awe were likelier to donate the proceeds of their experiments to refugees than those who did not. |
Yan et al., 2024 | pride and awe | sustainable behavioural intentions | • When self-transcendence values were given priority, awe increased sustainable behavioural intentions. |
