Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior.

@article{Piff2015AweTS,
  title={Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior.},
  author={Paul K. Piff and Pia Dietze and Matthew Feinberg and Daniel M Stancato and Dacher Keltner},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={2015},
  volume={108 6},
  pages={
          883-99
        }
}
Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference. Guided by conceptual analyses of awe as a collective emotion, across 5 studies (N = 2,078) we tested the hypothesis that awe can result in a diminishment of the individual self and its concerns, and increase prosocial behavior. In a representative national sample (Study 1), dispositional tendencies to experience awe predicted greater generosity in an economic game above and beyond other… 
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