Stress in the quotidian events of daily life, or daily hassles, is a powerful predictor of individuals' health and well-being. In the current investigation, across four studies, I tested whether and how awe reduces hassle-related stress, and thus leads to boosts in people's well-being. On a trait level, individuals with higher awe proneness (Study 1) reported lower levels of hassle-related stress. In follow-up laboratory experiments (Studies 2 & 3), induction of awe, compared to control conditions (amusement, joy, pride, & neutral), significantly decreased the intensity of individuals' major hassle-related stress. Finally, a naturalistic induction of awe in which participants viewed august sceneries from the top floor of a 200 feet campus tower reduced levels of both general hassle-related stress and personal major concerns (Study 4). Mediational data demonstrated that the effect of awe on reduced daily hassle-related stress is explained by a sense of perceived vastness. Furthermore, the relationship between awe and decreased daily hassle-related stress, in turn, explained awe's positive influence upon individuals' well-being. Together, these data establish awe's unique role in reducing daily concerns as well as increasing well-being.

Utilizing a multi-method approach, in this dissertation I first examined how reputation forms over time and how reputation is transmitted and communicated in newly forming and existing social networks, which are primarily affiliative in nature. Next, I examined how reputation differs from related constructs such as status and trust, how one’s workplace reputation changes depending on specific behaviors (workplace transgressions, helpful behaviors, and thoughtful apologies), and how the trajectories of one’s reputation may not necessarily be consistent across people in the same context, but may differ depending on individual (and hierarchical) factors such as power and gender. Finally, I examined whether a network’s criteria or perception of “good” or “bad” reputation may differ depending on the reference context, how group consensus may differ in “good” versus “bad” reputations, and whether reputation relates to meaningful behaviors (performance) that are objectively observable. While many outstanding questions remain, taken together, the findings from the present research suggest that taking a more nuanced approach to the study of personal reputation is a crucial endeavor in order to better understand and predict important social and organizational outcomes.

One of the most fascinating characteristics of emotions is that they have universal expressive patterns. These expressions, which are encoded through multiple bodily channels, allow us to identify distinct emotions in ourselves and others. After groundbreaking theorizing by Charles Darwin and early empirical work by Ekman and Izard, further research in emotion science revealed evidence in single cultures for more emotional expressions above and beyond the well-studied set comprising of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Some of these new emotions were displayed using nonfacial modalities, such as the voice, touch, and posture. Following the logic set forth by these methods and findings, we tested two hypotheses: 1) there are more than seven universal expressions of emotion; 2) expressive universality is not limited to facial expression.

Findings from three cross-cultural experimental studies yielded support to the above hypotheses. Our first study collected 5500 expressions of twenty-one emotions from five different cultures. Spontaneous behavioral analysis revealed core facial and bodily patterns for each of the 21 states across all five cultures. Additionally, we uncovered over 100 cultural variations to the universal patterns and hundreds of individual variations. We concluded from this study that there exist new potential universal expressions above and beyond the well-studied emotions. In a second study, we found that these core patterns were reliably decoded by naïve raters in 10 different countries. In this experiment, non-American participants rated the expressions of American actor-posed stills and acoustic recordings. We concluded that the new expressions were recognized universally and were reliably distinguished from the well-studied emotions anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Furthermore, nonverbal acoustic expressions of emotion were universally recognized at rates comparable to or greater than facial expression.

In the present work I test, for the first time, the Awe-Inclusion Hypothesis. The results of six studies across diverse methodologies provide support for my central claim, that awe is associated with greater social inclusion—conceptualized in terms of openness, collective orientation, connectedness, and perceptions and behavioral intentions of inclusion. I first tested this claim in trait-like tendencies and found that awe prone people tend to be more open-minded, more collective oriented, feel more connectedness to others, and are more inclusive of others (Studies 1 & 6). Second, in in-vivo studies in nature, self-reports of awe were related to greater connectedness to others (Studies 2 & 3). Third, in day-to-day life, on days in which people experienced more awe than typical, they also experienced greater connectedness and openness to different cultures (Studies 4 & 5). Fourth and last, in an experimental study, people induced to experience awe were more inclusive of People of Color (Study 6). Moreover, when compared to a pride and neutral condition, people in the awe condition were the least inclusive of non-POC, white groups. Across these studies, the effects of awe were unique and beyond the effects of other positive emotions. This work provides evidence suggesting that experiences of awe are associated with different aspects of social inclusion and provides promise for interventions aiming to improve diversity and inclusion.

In the present work I validate the Specific Emotion Experience Questionnaire (SEEQ) and use it to test the explanatory power of specific emotions on well-being. In three studies using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, I support my claim that the specific emotions measured in the SEEQ more powerfully relate to critical outcomes—including life satisfaction, social connection, and daily experiences of stress —than positive and negative affect. First, I tested the psychometric reliability of the full SEEQ and the SEEQ-20, a shorter 20-item measure. Then, in study 1, the SEEQ-20 explained up to 10 percentage points more variance in critical outcomes (e.g., loneliness and life satisfaction) than the predominant measure of positive and negative affect, the PANAS. Furthermore, using a statistical test of non-nested models, the SEEQ-20 was significantly better at explaining many of these outcomes. In study 2, a longitudinal sample comprised of 4,008 daily reports from 296 individuals, SEEQ-20 elation (high-arousal positive emotion), contentment (low-arousal positive emotion), gratitude (prosocial positive emotion), and sexual desire (an oft-neglected emotion) all uniquely corresponded to important, real-world experiences of daily life satisfaction, social connection, and stress. Study 3 replicated the SEEQ-20’s explanatory power over the PANAS on three (life satisfaction, loneliness, and positive relationships) of four (depression) pre-registered hypotheses. Furthermore, I replicated the psychometric reliability of the SEEQ and explored how other emotion constructs (e.g., contempt and elevation) fit with the SEEQ’s items. In summary, the SEEQ’s specific emotional experiences provide a foundation for a more comprehensive study of emotion in well-being, daily life, and potentially other domains such as culture.

The current investigation documented how individuals of different socioeconomic backgrounds differ in their judgments of the severity of economic inequality. Seven empirical studies provide robust support for the central hypothesis that those of higher (vs. lower) socioeconomic backgrounds will judge wealth distributions as less severely unequal. Further analyses suggested that these differences (in economic inequality judgments) can, in part, be explained by differences in economic system justification (i.e., stronger among those of higher socioeconomic backgrounds). Toward the end, I demonstrated how such differences can lead to, and explain, diverging reactions (in emotions and attributions) toward other societal issues – in current data, the unhousedness problem.

The subject of the current work is a highly polymorphic region on the gene coding for D4 type dopamine receptors (DRD4) consisting of a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) of a 48 base pair sequence. Convergent evidence from psychology, population genetics and animal behavior research support the important role the DRD4 VNTR polymorphism plays in promoting exploratory behavior.

Awe is an emotion felt in the presence of vast stimuli that are not accounted for by existing mental schema (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). In the current work I made the claim that awe signals the opportunity for exploration. Given the demonstrated relationship between the DRD4 VNTR polymorphism and exploratory behavior, the main aim of the current work is to test the relationship between this polymorphism and emotional reactivity to awe-eliciting situations. Specifically, I hypothesized that people with DRD4 VNTR variants that have been associated with exploratory behavior (carriers) would experience more awe than people who do not have those variants (non-carriers) across a range of situations.

Study 1 used a college sample to test this hypothesis, both in a controlled laboratory environment and in people’s daily lives using diary methodology. Specifically, in a laboratory setting, carriers reported more awe than non-carriers in response to a film clip that had been validated as a reliable elicitor or awe, but no differences were found between groups in response to film clips that elicited compassion and amusement. Furthermore, analyses of daily diary data showed a trend such that carriers reported more awe across a 14-day diary period than non-carriers. Study 2, an ecologically valid test of my hypothesis, found that in a sample of adolescents from underserved communities who went white-water rafting, carriers reported more awe than non-carriers. Importantly, DRD4 VNTR did not have a consistent effect on any of the other emotions measured across these three contexts. I discussed the implications these findings have for our understanding of the emotion of awe and programs that aim to increase well-being through the experience of awe.

Creativity has many benefits and scientists seek to understand what fosters it. Extant research suggests that positive emotions foster creativity. Guided by the appraisal-tendency framework, which details how closely related emotions differentially influence cognitive processes, four studies (N = 1,508) documented that trait and induced awe, compared to amusement, promotes creativity. Two trait based studies found that awe-prone people in the USA, Iran, and Malaysia reported more creative tendencies (Study 1) and were more likely to solve a creativity problem (Study 2). Turning to state-based awe, people experimentally induced to experience awe were more likely than people induced with amusement to consider unconventional associations (Study 3) and generate original ideas (Study 4). However, Study 5 (N = 152) did not reveal significant difference across experimental conditions on the Duncker Candle Task using the actual materials in the laboratory. This is the first set of studies that documented the unique contribution that awe has on promoting creativity.

“The chills” refers to a constellation of cold-defense sensations elicited by emotionally significant events. I examined the universality of chills sensations among 2,761 individuals across 26 countries distributed across 6 continents.

Across these varying cultures, analyses revealed two types of chills with distinct subjective and social correlates: goosebumps and tingling (“goosetingles”) and coldness and shivers (“coldshivers”). Goosetingles accompanied positive emotions, most notably awe, were elicited by reward, and predicted social closeness. Coldshivers accompanied negative emotions, most notably fear and disgust, and was elicited by threat, and predicted social separation. Some elicitors (e.g., success, failure) had stronger effects in cultures where they are more novel. Others, particularly those critical to evolutionary fitness (sexual arousal, danger), had strong effects regardless of culture. Coldshivers predicted separation more strongly in colder climates. These findings document universal approach- and avoidance-specific bodily sensations that reveal the thermoregulatory roots of emotion and social bonds.