Why being dazzled by the world can help memory and make us more generous

As most of us are only sporadically amazed, we still do not know its benefits. When we are sad, we are more likely to seek relief from comedy, for example – seeking out feelings of fun that are far less powerful.

But creating awe can make a big difference. Therefore, it can be an essential tool to improve our health and well-being. And there are many ways to cultivate that feeling in our daily lives.

Michelle Shiota, a professor of social psychology at Arizona State University in the United States, was one of the pioneers in discovering the benefits of awe. His particular interest lies in the ways in which he can remove our “mental filters” to encourage greater flexibility of thinking.

Let’s consider memory. If someone tells us a story, we usually remember what we think we should have heard rather than a specific description of the event. This may indicate that we have remembered unusual or unexpected elements that add to the clarity and specificity needed to understand what happened. We can also create false memories of events that do not exist, but we think could have happened in this type of situation.

A few years ago, Shiota decided to study whether creating a sense of wonder could prevent it. She asked participants, first, to watch one of three videos: a science film that takes viewers on the journey of subatomic particles from outer space; a thriller film about a figure skater who won an Olympic gold medal; Or a neutral movie about building a wall of cinder block.

Then participants listened to a five-minute story describing a couple going out for a romantic dinner and answered questions about what they had heard. Some of these questions commonly referred to expected events at any meal (“Did the waiter serve wine?”), while others referred to unusual information, such as whether the waiter was wearing glasses.

Confirming the hypothesis formulated by Shiota, participants who watched the scientific film remembered details more accurately than those who watched the neutral or encouraging film.

What would have been the reason? Shiota indicates that the brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. It uses its experiences to create mental stimuli that guide our perception, attention, and behavior.

Experiences that inspire awe—with their grandeur, awe and sense of awe—can confuse these expectations, creating a “small quake” in the mind that prompts the brain to re-determine its perceptions. causes and pays more attention to what is actually in front of it.

“The mind reprograms its ‘prediction code’ to simply look around and gather information,” she says. In addition to expanding our memory for details, it can improve critical thinking, according to Shiota, because people pay more attention to specific nuances of reasoning rather than relying on their intuition to explain themselves or not. .

The ability to discard assumptions and see the world and its problems from a new perspective may also explain why this feeling contributes to greater creativity. There is a study published in 2018 by Alice Chirico and colleagues at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy.

Participants who walked through the woods in virtual reality scored higher on tests of basic thinking than those who watched a more typical video of chickens roaming the grass. For example, the surprise-motivated participants were more innovative when asked how to improvise a children’s toy.

The most transformative effect of awe can refer to the way we see ourselves.

When we marvel at something truly amazing and grand, “we tend to think of ourselves as smaller and more insignificant than the rest of the world,” says Shiota. One result is greater altruism.

“When I focus less on myself, on my own goals and needs, and less on the thoughts that pop into my head, I am able to see you more and [perceber] What would you be living for,” she says.

To quantify these effects, a team led by Paul Piff of the University of California in Irvine, United States, asked one-third of the participants to watch a five-minute clip from the BBC’s Planet Earth series, which featured gorgeous images and wide-ranging images. The landscape is made up of mountains, plains, forests and canyons. The rest watched five minutes of funny animal videos or a neutral video.

Then, participants rated how much they agreed with four statements, such as “I feel the presence of something greater than me” and “I feel small and unimportant.” Finally, they participated in an experiment called the “dictator’s game,” in which they were given a resource—in this case, 10 coupons from a $100 gift card raffle—that they may or may not share with a partner. can. , if desired .

Feelings of awe caused a significant change in the generosity of the participants, leading to an increase in the number of coupons shared with the partners. Subsequent statistical analyzes allowed the researchers to demonstrate that this was caused by changes they felt about themselves. The younger the participants felt, the greater their generosity.

To replicate the finding in a more natural setting, one of the researchers took the students on a walk through a Tasmanian eucalyptus grove – which grows to more than 60 meters. As the students observed the splendor of the trees, the researchers “accidentally” dropped the cuttings they were carrying and the participants offered to pick them up.

He felt confidently that the participants were more helpful during this astonishing walk than the students who had spent their time looking at a tall but not so grand building.

Above all, the benefits for our mental health are enormous. They, like an increase in generosity, are caused by a decrease in the sense of self, which tends to reduce ruminant thinking.

This is potentially very important because rumination is a known risk factor for depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders. “You’re often so focused on the situation that you don’t think about anything else,” says Ethan Krauss, whose book Chatter: The Voice in Our Heads, Why It Matters and How to Use It (“Talk: The Voice in Your Head, Why It Matters, and How to Master It”) explores the effects of these negative self-talk.

Glare forces us to broaden our perspective, they say, to disrupt the circle of thought. “When you’re in the presence of something huge and indescribable, you feel better and your negative chatter is reduced as well,” he says.

To prove his point, Kraus points to an extraordinary experiment conducted by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States. Participants were military veterans and youth from disadvantaged communities, many of whom were experiencing severe life stress (some even with persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder).

All of them had previously signed up for a white water rafting trip sponsored by a philanthropic organization on the Verde River in Utah, United States. Before and after the trip, they were asked about their general psychological well-being, including their sense of stress and their ability to cope with life’s challenges. And after each day of rafting, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire that rated their feelings of surprise, fun, contentment, gratitude, happiness, and pride.

As might be expected, the trip was generally very pleasant for most of the participants. But it was a sense of wonder that indicated the most significant improvements in her stress and overall well-being.

These were clearly exceptional circumstances, but researchers saw a very similar effect in a second study that examined students’ daily interactions with nature. Again, they found that surprise experiences had a much greater impact on students’ long-term well-being than did feelings of contentment, fun, gratitude, happiness, and pride.

Before we get carried away by this research, Shiota cautions that scientists have yet to investigate whether this powerful emotion has any negative effects. He suspects, for example, that that surprise may explain the appeal of many conspiracy theories—with complex and mysterious explanations of how the world works. But in general, the benefits of surprise should be considered whenever we feel that our thinking is stuck in an unproductive or harmful rut.

“Capacity [que temos] stepping outside on your own is a very valuable technique”, says Krauss. She believes that walking through your neighborhood’s public garden and thinking about space travel brings essential feelings of awe, respect, and respect, But it indicates that each of us will have our own individual preferences. “Try to identify what your own triggers are,” he suggests.

For Michelle Shiota, the possibilities are as endless as the universe. “The stars in the night sky remind us of the universe beyond our experience. The sound of the ocean reminds us of its vast depths; the spectacular sunset reminds us of how vast and thick the atmosphere around our planet is,” She says. Not to mention the sublime experiences offered by music, cinema or art.

“It’s about experiencing and paying attention to the extraordinary things around us rather than what’s on a regular basis for us,” she concludes.

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