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  4. A paper by Assistant Professor Masataka Nakayama, entitled “Awe and the Meaning Making,” has been published in Japanese Psychological Review

A paper by Assistant Professor Masataka Nakayama, entitled “Awe and the Meaning Making,” has been published in Japanese Psychological Review

A paper by Assistant Professor Masataka Nakayama, entitled “Awe and the Meaning Making,” has been published in Japanese Psychological Review.

When looking up at the starry sky and feeling the beauty and grandeur of nature, or when afraid and trembling at the sight of natural threats as earthquakes and typhoons, our views on life and the world change. Emotions experienced through such encounters are studied under the term “Awe” (畏怖・畏敬 in Japanese).

Awe has been associated with a variety of behaviors, including prosocial behavior, changes in values, and knowledge of ignorance. On the other hand, there has been no unified framework for understanding them.

This paper reviews literature and proposes that a wide range of phenomena can be understood in a unified manner by meaning making processes caused by the experience of awe. Directions for future research are discussed by focusing on how the process of meaning making through awe could be influenced by social and cultural meaning systems and how sharing awe experiences could function as a social and cultural device.

Masataka Nakayama (2020), “Awe and the Meaning Making.” 63(1) 28–43, Japanese Psychological Review.

Preprint: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/45vbw

2020/12/08

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