Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Leadership Studies

Abstract

Prior research has shown that awe can have positive psychological effects on people who experience it. We conducted two experimental trials to test whether awe can be evoked by art and whether this art induced awe can increase people's charitable donations and decrease their grief in the face of losing an important relationship. We concluded that spectacular videos of art production were significant evokers of awe compared to their mundane control counterparts. We also found that the awe videos increased charitable donations through a mediating variable of feeling the "presence of something greater than oneself." Lastly, we found that there was a significant interaction between experiencing awe and gender on grief. Men in the control condition reported significantly less grief than any other group of participants, suggesting that the awe video intervention has the power to increase grief reports for men.

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